Moments in Time and Space
by apocalypticheroes
Summary: Timelines are tricky things. All it takes is one slip and they start to unravel.
1. 01

**Curator III**

_My __beloved __Catastrophe__,_

_I __think __Idris __is __playing __funny __buggers__. __Her __library __has __a __swimming __pool__, __which __seems __like __the __kind __of __detail __I __would __not __have __previously __overlooked__. __And __even __if __I __had __missed __such __a __thing__, __I __would __not __have __missed __that __her __quantum __mechanics __section __is __missing __several __vital __texts__. __It __appears __my __research __will __have __to __wait __until __she __is __in __a __better __mood__._

Nandy closed the door on the swimming pool-cum-library complex and made her way back toward the cloister. Maybe Idris was just feeling lonely at a certain time and had temporally shifted her to compensate for lack of company. A little soothing, maybe a short jaunt to somewhere colourful might put her back in a giving frame of mind.

She paused at the door to the console room. There were footsteps, voices. She raised an eyebrow and stroked a hand down the ship's wall, trying to telepathically hunt down the problem. Idris wasn't giving her anything. With a shrug she touched her fingers to the necklace that hung between her breasts and opened the door.

"Space, 1969!"

Nandy raised an eyebrow at the scene that greeted her. Specifically, the Doctor on one of his signature expository rambles. He dashed around the console, hitting buttons and pulling levers (the wrong buttons and levers) and talking to a mildly perturbed River, Amelia Pond and Rory the Roman.

Nandy took up a seat on the stairs, smoothed down her skirts and opened her journal again, preparing to continue her letter.

_She __appears __to __have __decided __I __need __a __visit __with __the __Doctor __and __the __River__. __They __are __on __their __way __to __Washington__, 1969, __for __some __amusements __with __the __Silence__. __I __could __think __of __such __mischief __if __I __tagged __along__. __To __think __what __heartbreak __awaits __when __they __realise __how __close __they __came __to __rescuing __our __impossible __astronaut__._

_On __a __side __note__, __remind __me __in __the __future __not __to __have __my __perception __filter __installed __on __my __favourite __necklace__. __Sentimental __value __aside__, __it __means __I __am __the __only __one __to __ever __see __it__. __Better __to __choose __an __ugly __one__._

If she remembered rightly, the Ponds had just witnessed what they believed to be the Doctor's murder in Utah. Nandy smiled a little at that. If only they knew what they'd really witnessed was a wedding and a scrapped tesselecta. Lacking foreknowledge, they instead chose to stalk down to the cloister in a huff.

The Doctor stayed above, flicking more wrong switches and attempting to lock onto Canton. She rested her chin on her hand and watched him. It was a treat to see him so young. The youngest she had ever seen him, at a guess. He was still fairly new to his body. Awkward. His little pout was adorable, though.

Eventually he grew bored and yelled down to the conspirators below.

_This __is __an __exciting __time __to __be __a __fly __on __the __wall__. __It __may __be __a __stroke __of __good __fortune __to __find __myself __here__. __There __is __a __lot __to __observe__._

_Must __go__, __action__'__s __starting__._

_Yours __always__. _

Nandy trailed off and leaned forward anxiously. She'd never seen the particulars of how the Ponds had convinced the Doctor to follow his future self's orders. Giving orders to the Doctor was a challenge at the best of times, even his own orders. Best witnessed as he dramatically threw himself into the jumpseat and declared himself late for either knitting or biplane lessons.

She giggled, biting her lip.

The River tried to come up with a lie in stilted sentences. For such a proficient liar she was doing a terrible job. The Doctor seemed to agree, as he leapt to his feet and invaded her personal space. He growled out questions which River couldn't answer.

The laughter died on Nandy's lips. He was being so aggressive. Almost... cruel.

She'd heard about the early days, when he didn't trust River, but she'd never seen it in action. Who are you? Who did you kill?

Did he really think so poorly of her?

"Trust you? Seriously?" the Doctor asked, his voice as cold as ice.

River closed her eyes.

Nandy snapped her journal shut and jumped to her feet. She didn't need to see this. She tamped down on the urge to do something stupid.

Instead she turned on her heel, moved to leap up the stairs as quickly as possible, caught her toes on a step and promptly fell head-over-heels to the console room floor.

It all happened so quickly. Her knee hit the glass with a crack, sending a jolt of pain right up through her hip. She caught her weight on her hands. Her skirts blew up over her hair, landing her in a pile of hair and cotton and contorted limbs.

Her journal skittered across the floor so fast that she didn't even have time to cry out.

The pain in her leg and hands was nothing, some far away sensation to the cold horror that crashed over her as the book left the perception filter's boundaries and skidded straight into the Doctor's foot, thumping dully against his boot.

She was paralysed for a moment, her brain frozen with the implications of what had just happened. The Doctor stared at the book by his foot, his anger vanished.

Some long-forgotten instinct kicked in and she scrambled up the stairs, untangling herself and sliding through the door in one panicked movement. She had seconds, minutes at most before he realised someone else was on the TARDIS.

"Hide me, hide me, hide me," she begged as she ran.

One of the doors called to her and she skidded to a halt just a little too slowly to avoid slamming her shoulder against the door. She opened it up and slipped through, finding herself – of all places – in the proper library.

Nandy let out a choking laugh and pulled out her emergency psychic paper.

_My __beloved __Catastrophe__,_

_I __may __have __accidentally __cocked __up __the __universe__. _

_Stand __by __for __details__._

_Yours __always__. _


	2. 02

**River III**

There was dead silence in the console room when the leatherbound book flew out of nowhere. River heard the door to the corridor open but when she looked around there was no one else there.

All four of them exchanged glances, as if someone had seen something. The Doctor slowly reached down and picked up the book. He handled it like it might explode, barely touching the edges with his fingertips.

It was thin, so thin that River couldn't see any pages. The Doctor tentatively flicked it open to reveal that it had a single page, covered in small, neat handwriting.

"Amy, Amy, your phone... camera... thing," the doctor said, miming a mobile phone with one hand.

Amelia fumbled the little pink phone out of her pocket and handed it over. The Doctor pressed a few buttons, then held the phone back, trying to get all the writing in one shot.

"What is it?" River asked.

"Quantum entangled stationary." The Doctor took the photograph. "Brilliant stuff. Haven't seen any since that time on Sepsimus Trivera, you weren't there for that one, Ponds. Rare, expensive, seems our mystery guest has friends in high places or is in a very high place them...selves... hah! There we go."

As they watched the writing disappeared from the page, leaving it stark white, not even the imprints of the pen showing.

Amelia leaned over the paper. "What was that?"

"Like I said, brilliant stuff. Comes in pairs. You write on this one and someone, somewhere, somewhen gets the message. When they read it, the page goes blank. Then they can send a message back. Any second now."

They stared at the paper, waiting. River was half convinced that he was being absurd when large, messy scrawl appeared on the paper as if by magic.

_What __do __you __mean __you __cocked __up __the __universe__?_

"That's probably not good," Rory said.

"You think?" Amelia asked, offering him a derisively blank stare.

River shook her head. "What did the first message say?"

The doctor tossed her the camera phone, but she knew he'd already memorised the letter. He stalked to the other side of the console in that way he did only when his patience was wearing extremely thin. "It _said_ that there's someone else aboard my TARDIS. There's someone watching us, possibly has been watching us for quite some time. Maybe two people, depending on who Idris is."

"How is that possible?" Amelia asked, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. "I thought you were the only one who could get into the TARDIS without a key."

"So did I. There's mystery number one. They're using a perception filter, could go unnoticed for as long as they like, so mystery number two is how long have we been watched? Maybe not as important as mystery number three which is why the old girl is letting them hang about, she's not mad about unwelcome guests. Who is Catastrophe would be number four. Which brings me to mystery number five."

There was a ringing silence as he stopped talking, hands flat on the console, eyes fixed on a random instrument. River had a terrible feeling that this was about to go south for her. He was on edge enough, thinking they were up to something, but at least he'd believe Amelia and Rory were being threatened, coerced, tricked. She wouldn't be so lucky.

He raised his head and stared at Amelia. "What do you three know about the impossible astronaut?"

River looked down at the phone in her hands.

_To __think __what __heartbreak __awaits __when __they __realise __how __close __they __came __to __rescuing __our __impossible __astronaut__._

She swallowed the lump in her throat. They'd just asked him to go to 1969, to the moon landing. Her mind scrambled to come up with some explanation but she had to admit it looked bad.

"This person obviously knows our future," she blurted out, trying for something. They couldn't let the Doctor know that he himself had sent them. If his timestreams crossed too dramatically then they really would need to worry about a cocked up universe.

"Sounds familiar," he deadpanned.

"Listen to this. '_They __are __on __their __way __to __Washington__, 1969, __for __some __amusements __with __the __Silence__.'_ We don't even know what the Silence is, this is written by someone who already knows what we're about to do." She could hear the slightly desperate tinge to her voice. "I know what's already happened in my personal timeline, I don't know what's happening in the here and now."

That was almost the truth. It was easier to lie when it was almost the truth. She hadn't done Washington 1969 from this end.

The Doctor eyed her critically. "Tell me something true, River Song."

She was getting terribly close to losing his trust completely, so she offered what she could. "I don't know anything about that book."

He nodded, seeming to accept that. She breathed a sigh of relief when he turned toward Amy. "What about you, Amelia Pond? What do you want to tell me about the impossible astronaut?"

Amelia looked like she was about to crack under the pressure. She was nervous, shifting her weight, her arms wrapped around her ribs. "I... I know that we need to go to 1969. I believe that."

"Rory?"

Rory nodded. "It's true. We need to go there."

The Doctor judged all three of them silently for a long moment. River felt a chill down her spine. Some days he didn't know her at all, but in these early days the worse feeling was when she didn't know him. He was so angry young.

The moment seemed to stretch into hours before he turned on his heel. "No, I don't fancy that."

"What?" River couldn't say which of them spoke first.

"See, here's the thing," he said, holding up a finger. "Well, a few things. We're going up against the Silence. Does anyone know what the Silence is? Because I've been hearing that name a lot and I hate to go in unprepared. Also, I don't know if anyone noticed this, but we're going to fail. We're going to come close, but not rescue the astronaut, and apparently that's going to cause some heartbreak."

"We don't want to rescue it!" Amelia said so quickly that she was almost talking over him.

River closed her eyes for just a moment. Her mother didn't know. She didn't want rescuing, either, that would break her timeline. That shouldn't hurt.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her, a look of delighted intrigue on his face. "Oh, now, that's interesting. Amy doesn't want to rescue it but River does. The plot thickens."

"I don't. We do." River's mouth got away from her. Why was this day going so badly for her? She had to get this back under control. She gritted her teeth. "We can't go messing around with the timeline. Foreknowledge is dangerous."

"We're not the ones who are messing around, here," he waved the book at her. "Someone is already way ahead of us. I want to know who. We have a name. Who wants to know who it belongs to?"

He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and started scanning the book. He read the results and frowned, then turned to the ancient typewrite on the console.

Amelia and Rory looked at her, as if she had some solution to this when he was being mad and determined. She was quick and clever, but she hadn't met the force in the universe that could dissuade this man once he had his mind set on something. Most days it was something she loved about him. Most days.

"What, 'Catastrophe'?" Rory asked incredulously. "How are you going to track down someone with that for a name?"

Rory was right, finding someone with a name like that wouldn't be easy. It might even take him so long that he'd get bored and become intrigued by 1969 again. A thought suddenly hit River and every single part of her groaned silently. She wished she had just kept her mind on getting him to Florida.

He whirled around and she frowned. It was like he had a sixth sense for her today, like he knew every little thing she was failing to mention.

"I heard that."

"Heard what?" she asked.

"You've got an idea."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do." He stepped a little closer to her, this time not threatening, more playful. "Come on, tell me."

She sighed. "You ever get an idea that you wish you hadn't got because it's terrible but probably right?"

"All the time."

"I know who the Catastrophe is."


	3. 03

**Doctor XI**

The Stormcage was a fascinating place. A little on the dreary side, but it took true tenacity to build an entire prison in such an inconvenient location. It was a wonder they ever got any of the cement to dry.

"You're sure about this?" River asked, walking by his side. "Not all prisoners are charming and fun at parties."

She gave a smug little smile as she said that, like she hadn't been actively lying to him for the past hour, and his infuriating, frustrating face smirked back instead of admonishing her. She looked all too comfortable in the dark hallway, lightning occasionally illuminating her face, the light almost getting caught in her curls. Her footfalls sounded softer, his hard shoes seemed to want to make him clatter like a tap-dancer on the concrete floors.

It was so dark. He didn't know how she could stand this dark all the time.

"Isn't that why you're here, Doctor Song? To protect me?" he smiled at her and she laughed. Truthfully he wasn't worried about having another prisoner on the TARDIS, the old girl had dozens of ways to safely contain a person. It wasn't the safest thing he'd ever done, but he was confident. And River knew all that.

A clap of thunder suddenly blasted through the corridor, sounding so loud that it was like an explosion. The Doctor jumped, his ears ringing. It took him a moment to figure out what was going on. River seemed unsurprised. He whipped around, trying to figure it out. The storm was hardly a surprise but there were sound dampeners all over the complex, he shouldn't have been able to hear that.

"There are no dampeners in his cell," River said, still walking.

"How do you know?"

"How do you think I know him at all? Every time the lightning hits too close to him we all lose the fillings in our teeth. Enough to drive a person batty."

He jogged a few steps to catch up with her. "You have fillings in your teeth?"

"It's a figure of speech." She nodded forward, drawing his attention to the cell where all the noise had originated.

It was incredibly loud to be so close. Not as bad as the single lightning strike on top of them, but it was by no means quiet, a long, constant rumble of rain and thunder. Maybe this was some kind of torture technique, to leave all the unfiltered sounds of the storm running through the cell.

In the darkness a man sat on a chair, his back to the bars, watching the storms through his tiny window. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but was all skin and bone. Like he'd been underfed in his formative years and just had fine, hard ropes of muscle holding up a giant skeleton. His hands were handcuffed behind his back even alone in his cell, long fingers with chewed nails curled in on themselves.

"There you have it," River said. "The Ultraviolet Catastrophe. You sure you want to do this?"

"Just a few questions. Are you afraid, Doctor Song?"

She raised an eyebrow and nodded. "I was serious before. This is a maximum security penitentiary. Its inmates aren't cuddly."

"Like you are?"

"I'm extremely cuddly," she said, admirably maintaining a straight face.

"I'll bet. File?"

She handed him the hard copy file that she'd pilfered from the warden's office and he opened it to read through the press statement. The silent, skinny man in the chair was incarcerated for terrorism. Eighteen bombings at points all over time and space. The death toll was nearly 20,000.

He swallowed, his good humour gone. It was uncomfortable enough to have someone unknown aboard his TARDIS without that person being connected to this person.

He sonicked the lock on the cell and the bars slid away. The Catastrophe didn't seem to notice them. River started going through his few things but the Doctor moved to stand in front of him. He needed to see the man's face. This man who had killed 20,000 people, this man who had a contact in his home.

The Catastrophe didn't even look at him until he blocked his view of the window, then dark, intelligent eyes flew to meet his. He was young. Maybe thirty. Good looking enough, probably had no trouble with the ladies. Other than that... unremarkable. A perfectly average man with a nose and ears and eyes. Dishevelled and overgrown from a long prison stay but the Doctor didn't doubt that after a shower and a shave no one would blink at him standing in line at the post office or grocery store.

But in those dark eyes there was something the Doctor truly, honestly didn't want to see.

Recognition.

"Doctor!" River had to yell over the storm. He looked over to where she knelt, various brick-a-brack gathered in her lap, and she pulled a leatherbound book from under his mattress. It was identical to the one already in their custody.

"Alright, up you get." The Doctor was mostly speaking to himself, it was too loud for the Catastrophe to hear him so he emphasised the words by guiding him to his feet by his wrists. The prisoner gave him a surprised glance but didn't struggle.

In fact he didn't seem to have any questions at all when they led him from his cell, walking down the hallway as if they were official Stormcage guards, approaching the TARDIS like it was an interrogation room and ducking inside without so much as raising an eyebrow.

Amelia and Rory were peering over the console, eyeing the visitor with open curiosity.

The Doctor sighed. "I thought I told you two to stay out of sight."

Amelia scoffed. "What made you think we'd listen to that?"

"Sometimes you display a little common sense."

"River gets to be here." She pointed to where River was holding a gun to the Catastrophe's head and settling him into the flight seat. The man glanced disinterestedly at the gun as he sat.

"River's much scarier than you. Just get somewhere safe."

"He's handcuffed and at gunpoint."

The Doctor let out an inarticulate noise of frustration. Why didn't anyone ever listen to him anymore?

"It's quiet in here," the Catastrophe said, his voice soft.

"You, no talking," the Doctor made a gesture to that effect in his direction, his eyes still on Amelia. "You two, no talking either, if you're staying you can stay quiet."

Amelia gave him a mocking salute. He turned around to see River refitting the handcuffs around the railing.

This man seemed so very, very small. He wasn't small, not even by human standards, but compared to the weight of his crimes he seemed half a shadow. A tiny little man who had killed 20,000 people.

"He's secure," River said, then took a step back, both hands wrapped around her gun.

The man looked up at her briefly, his eyes lingering on the gun, then stared straight ahead.

"Well, then," the Doctor clapped his hands together. "Let's find out who you are." He opened the file. "Amarillo Titus..." he scanned for a last name. "Redacted. Planet of origin... redacted. Date of birth redacted. Species redacted. Education redacted, next of kin redacted and affiliations redacted. List of charges is here, though. Quite thorough. Four hundred people in an office building in New New York. Eighteen hundred on a passenger ship outside Andromeda. Three hundred in a cathedral. Takes a special kind of person to bomb a place of worship. A terrorist."

"I prefer the term freedom fighter." There was an unmistakable note of sarcasm in his voice. Defiance. His eyes weren't so far away now, he was in the room, taking notice. "And those numbers are inaccurate. There were four hundred and thirty six humanoids in that cathedral. Three hundred and eighteen were human."

"And you obliterated them from space and time. An ultraviolet catastrophe. Unconventional use of the concept, I'd call it brilliant if it weren't so disgusting. But you got a fun press nickname out of it."

"And a t-shirt."

The Doctor swallowed a lump of anger and spoke a little too loudly. "Right then, Mr. Redacted. Or do you prefer Mr. Catastrophe?"

"Amy's fine."

"No it isn't." He spoke without really thinking, but quickly decided he was right. "No. It isn't. You see there's someone called Amy that I like very much and you... I don't like you at all. So tell me, Amarillo Titus, who is on the other end of this notebook?"

Amarillo looked at the quantum entangled stationary and for the first time looked like he might decide to take things seriously. "No one."

"Try again."

"No one that you need to worry about."

"She's been on my TARDIS. She knows my future. She knows my companions. So come on, my beloved Catastrophe. Girlfriend? Wife?"

Amarillo shuffled uncomfortably in his seat but said nothing.

"What's she doing here? How does she know my future?" He leaned in close but Amarillo stayed silent. "Alright, let's keep thing simple. What species are you?You look human but in this time period humans don't have this demolitions technology or any particular enemy to use it against. So if you are human you didn't grow up as one. 'Course you could be a shapeshifter or a plasmavore, a gaseous or energy being in a host body. Loads of stuff you could be, so what are you?"

The man looked up with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not any species. I was engineered. Is this why you kidnapped me? To steal my things and interrogate me about my genetic makeup? Can I please go back to my cell?"

"What were you engineered for? No, wait, I have a better question." The Doctor clapped his hands together. This man wasn't answering nearly as many questions as he'd like and he'd barely started asking them. He had to get some of the big stuff out of the way. "How did your friend mess up the universe?"

"How did you find out about me?"

River, her gun still trained on him, reached into her jacket and produced the other notebook. "This."

Amarillo groaned. "How did you get that?"

"Flew out of nowhere," the Doctor said. "One minute we're all talking about things and the next this comes skidding along the floor."

The two men shared eye contact for a long, serious moment while he processed that. Then Amarillo started laughing. "You're joking."

"Should I be?"

"That girl is like a giraffe in a man-suit. I would bet you anything she fell arse-over-tit down those stairs." He nodded in the direction of the console entrance. "Drops her notebook and breaks time. She's too perfect. You're not supposed to meet me for another three hundred years. For you. About... seven or eight months for the River and negative eight years for me. Never for Amy and Rory. So if you could just put me back in my cell..."

He trailed off as River cocked her gun, putting the notebook on the console to grip the weapon with with both hands. The Doctor felt a nervous thrill shoot through him and fought his urge to fidget. Hearing a mass murderer speak the names of his family so casually, so comfortably, was so much more than he had bargained for.

"So you're someone from our future," he said, his voice coming out eerily calm.

"You should read a person's file before kidnapping them." Amarillo was calm, seemingly oblivious to the gun levelled at his head by an increasingly agitated River. He was too calm. Like this happened every day. It threw the Doctor all off balance. The person handcuffed to the rails with a gun to their head wasn't supposed to be the one in control but that was how it felt.

The Doctor looked down at the forms in his hands. Everything was blacked out or redacted or too awful to think about.

He apparently took too long searching because Amarillo sighed. "You're the one who put me in prison."

"Ah. Looking forward to it."

"Doctor, how does he know our names?" Amelia asked. He had momentarily forgotten his companions, but Amelia had gone a shocking shade of white, her eyes rimmed red in the contrast. "How does he know our names if we're never supposed to meet him?"

"Good question, Pond. Answer, Amy Titus?"

"No."

The Doctor spun around to look at him. "No?"

"No," Amarillo confirmed. "You do realise you have kidnapped me, yes? I want to go back to my cell. It's too quiet here."

"Answer me."

"Or what? I'm already in prison. Or was. Your idea of torture is withholding dessert after dinner, so I know you're not going to make me talk. I just want to go back to the storm." He looked up through big, childlike eyes and the Doctor involuntarily reeled back, clenching one fist.

He turned away and took a deep breath. He needed to take a step back, gain some high ground on this. He could just hand him over to River, but that would probably be a bad idea. Either she wouldn't get results and he'd lose all authority on his own TARDIS or she would and he'd get a glimpse of her character that he really didn't care for.

"What do you want?"

"What do _you _want?

"I want to know who is on my TARDIS and then I want them off it."

He licked his lips and looked around. "The TARDIS exists in all of time and space, anyone who is onboard isn't ever getting off, not really."

"What a final way to look at it."

"I'm just talking facts. I need to talk to her about this, I can't go around adjusting the timeline without her say-so. Uncuff me."

"I really don't see that happening."

Amarillo gave him an exasperated look and jerked his head toward River. "She has 8,000 more life sentences than I do and she's armed."

The Doctor frowned. "That's different."

"How? You _know_ what I did."

It would have been so nice to believe that wasn't true. He looked up at River, who looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

This was becoming a test of attrition, how much he could bear in exchange for information on the intruder. If he was honest, he was willing to risk the cuffs just to get this man off his ship. Not that he'd ever be truly off the TARDIS, as he had so helpfully pointed out.

"Keep a close eye on him, River," the Doctor said, then pointed the sonic and unlocked the cuffs.

Amarillo didn't rub his wrists. It was strange to watch him unthinkingly reject that reflex and just fold his hands in his lap. "Thank you. I'll arrange a quick visit with Nandy, a younger Nandy, one who doesn't know too much. Once you've met her you'll feel better about life."

"Why do I get the feeling you're not going to do this for free?"

"Because I'm not. But my price isn't high. A few creature comforts I can't get in prison. I'll need some tequila, some chocolate cake and music – particularly the music, no quiet while I work."

"Work?"

"I can intersect timelines without too much deviation, she's in Florida, 1969 but you won't remember her even if you cross paths, the justice department won't allow it. I can whip up a memory modulator to stop you forgetting, but I'll need access to a workshop."

This is going to end badly, there was no way this would end well. That man in a TARDIS workshop. "You built those bombs, didn't you?"

Amarillo met his eye evenly. "Yes."

"And you want to go into my workshop?"

The man bit down on a sigh. He looked around in frustration. "Four hundred and thirty-six humanoids in that cathedral. Three hundred eighteen humans, four chando, eight alpha centaurans, an axos, forty-two silurians, two arcateenians and sixty-one Dark Species G-63. There were also forty one spiders, one hundred twelve cockroaches, eighty-two mosquitoes, ninety-three houseflies, four mice and a cat. The total organic mass was approximately thirty-four thousand, eight hundred eighteen point one five three six nine two four four kilograms."

"What is he doing, Doctor?" Amy asked, her voice trembling. "Why is he telling us that?"

"_Because_ you seem to think I did what I did for a lark, or on a whim. My bombs need to be planted to the nanometre, to the nanosecond, calibrated atom by atom and I don't even know what they'd do on a TARDIS. I couldn't make any trouble if I wanted to. So lay off and get that _gun __out __of __my __face_." He said the last to River, his voice breaking on the words, a flash of a scared young man breaking through his nonchalant facade.

_I __don__'__t __like __this_. The words sprung up in the Doctor's brain and seemed to short circuit the rest of his thinking. Amarillo's crimes were unthinkable, but when the facts were stripped down to barebones he had a scared child held prisoner on his TARDIS with a gun pointed at him and it was inescapable that this had grown out of his control.

"River, it's alright," he said softly. "He's not going to be any trouble, just put the gun down."

She shot a look at Amelia and Rory, but lowered the gun. "Alright."

He crouched down in front of the Catastrophe, coming eye to eye with him. "You can have your things. You're not our prisoner. Help me understand what's going on and I'll take you back to Stormcage. Deal?"

Amarillo nodded. "Deal."


	4. 04

**Catastrophe VIII**

Amy Titus was not unaccustomed to being kidnapped, per se. Being pulled out of the Stormcage wasn't so bad now that he had music, cake and alcohol, so this go round was an improvement on the last on that front. But he would have traded it any day for still being safe in his cell, serving his time.

Idris had welcomed him back with open arms, finding his favourite music and blasting it through the workshop which she had helpfully stocked with everything a temporal engineer could need and Nandy's notebook had gone missing a few hours ago so he could contact her again when he managed to get his hands on his own.

And there, right there, was where the good things stopped.

Most people who kidnapped him were absolutely clear in their demands. Go here, kill this, rip space/time, kill it, kill it, kill it.

This lot made some nebulous demand for emotional closure. He couldn't build that in any workshop.

What was worse was that he wanted to give it to them. He'd convinced them to go to 1969 as planned while he worked, but everything was going all wrong. The argument between the Doctor and River over how much she wasn't telling them had devolved into a screaming match and he really didn't need to see that.

"8,000 more life sentences than him?" the Doctor had crowed incredulously. "What on Earth did you _do_?"

"As I was told."

It made Amy Titus want to shake his head in shame. If this was what they were like around Nandy it was no wonder she had been flustered enough to drop her book.

Hopefully his plan would set them all straight and he could just get back to prison. He had three months before they'd encounter Nandy in the real world, in that time he had to build from scratch a memory displacement inhibitor. Like a Silence eyedrive, only good.

Of course, this put him in a position where he had to be on the TARDIS while they all had to be off it.

Rory the Roman was guarding him, making sure that he was only making what he was supposed to.

Amy Titus did not point out that Rory couldn't tell the difference between a memory displacement inhibitor and a temporal bomb. Actually he was fairly sure that the man wasn't there to oversee his work so much as maintain the constant judgemental stare that he'd been treated to for his stay.

"You know, I always wanted to meet you," Amy Titus said.

Rory stared.

"So many stories. My mother used to tell them to me." He set aside his work in exchange for his cake. Might as well take pity, Rory was clearly convinced sabotage was afoot.

Rory stared. He didn't say anything while Amy Titus took another two shots of tequila and started picking at his cake. After a long moment his curiosity got the better of him. "I thought you were engineered."

"Hmm?"

"If you were lab-grown, how can you have a mother?"

"I was adopted," Amy Titus said, affronted. He wasn't some swamp monster, he was familiar with things like family, he had parents. And kidnapped was almost the same as adopted. Admittedly, the latter ended with fewer acts of terrorism, generally.

"A real triumph of the system," Rory muttered.

Amy Titus flinched. "Didn't say it was to someone good. My favourite story was always Demons Run. You haven't done that one, yet. But you've done the Pandorica, I liked that one too."

"How does your mother know us?"

"You'll meet her."

"When?"

"About eight months. You'll recognise her. Face like a komodo dragon. This is great cake."

"How can you possibly work when you're so drunk?"

Amy Titus grinned despite himself. It was true, the bottle of tequila was looking perilously empty. It must have looked odd to Rory. Humans worked best with clear heads, no alcohol or narcotics, plenty of sleep and a quiet environment. If he were in that state the clamour inside his own head would drive him mad, he would never be able to focus on just one thing like a slice of cake or a complex engineering project.

He tapped a finger to his temple. "Perfect memory. It'd take more than some booze to interfere with it. I could do this in my sleep. I did once, actually. It wasn't a memory mod, it was a paradox diversion circuit. Surprise to both me and my guards, I'll tell you that."

Rory looked away, his jaw tight, throat working.

Amy Titus turned back to his cake. "You're allowed to laugh. It doesn't make you a bad person."

"It does a bit though, doesn't it? I mean you've killed tens of thousands of people but you just get to sit here, getting pissed and cracking jokes. It's not really the sort of thing I want to encourage."

"Then you probably shouldn't have – and I can't stress this enough – _kidnapped __me__._ I was serving out my sentence, you lot are the ones who put me in a room with the drink and the audience."

Rory screwed up his face like he was trying to formulate the words to express a difficult sentiment. He opened and closed his mouth several times on false starts before finally settling. "But how do you deal with it? Don't you feel guilty?"

"No."

"All those people..."

Amy Titus grunted dismissively. "I was born and raised to tear time, to devastate. It's my purpose and I fulfil it as best I can. I, uh," he swallowed suddenly feeling a little more emotional than he'd intended. "I'm not a role model, but I matter to the people I love. They don't... they don't hate me."

"Like Nandy?"

He smiled to himself. "Yeah. She's from my future, you know. Pretty far, I think. Actually, if I'm honest I think I'll die before she's born. She just doesn't like me being alone in prison, so she keeps me company where she can."

Rory stared at him, disapproval and curiosity warring on his face. He reached out, grabbed a fork and nabbed a bit of cake. Chewing thoughtfully on the bite, he nodded like he was coming to understand something. "You're protecting her."

"Pardon?"

"You make all these awful jokes and stuff, but not when you talk about Nandy. You're serious when you talk about her. I know about protecting the girl you love."

Amy Titus laughed. "I suppose you do, at that. Yes, I'm protecting her. She's not making it easy on me right now."

"They never do. Sometimes I think Amy has a deathwish."

"Nandy just wants to break the orbits of the galaxies, I swear. It's always 'oops, just created a black hole' or 'well I didn't like that solar system anyway'."

"She sounds..."

"Terrifying?"

Rory grinned. "Yeah."

It felt good to laugh with someone else. For the longest time staving off the quiet had occupied his thoughts and by the time he had it under control enough to really think about making friends or having a family, the Stormcage had been waiting. Rory was a good bloke, he knew that much. He couldn't let too much slip, but a laugh over their respective damsels in distress was something he hadn't known he wanted.

"Is she like you?" Rory asked hesitantly.

"A great dancer?"

"I mean..."

"I know. And no. There are a lot of terrible things in the universe, but we do our best to keep Nandy's hands clean. She has too many people relying on her to end up like me."

The sound of the TARDIS doors banging open echoed down the corridor. Amy Titus could hear the Doctor wittering on about something. He knew this sequence of events, Rory needed to leave. They'd probably lock him in.

"So what makes you think the Doctor's going to be alright with Nandy on the TARDIS once he's met her?" Rory asked.

"She has a way with people."

"She'd want to."

"Rory!" The Doctor burst into the room. "Getting along well with the murderer?"

Amy Titus looked down at his cake, trying to ignore that.

Rory, to his credit, just shrugged. "Not bad. You?"

"Well, she has her moments." He slid the cake away from Amy Titus with two fingers.

Amy Titus looked up, bewildered. "Took my cake?"

The Doctor held eye contact steadily, making sure he was paying attention. "We have a guest on the TARDIS. Can I ask you not to...?"

"Super-murder him? I'll do my best."

"There's a good lad." The Doctor clapped him on the back and slid his cake back across the table. "How's the work going?"

"I'm rewriting the mechanisms of a Time Lord's temporal sensory input, it's going to take a while. Don't worry, we've got three months here."

He hadn't entirely thought through that statement before making it. Rory and the Doctor looked at him and he pointedly avoided their stares. They didn't know yet that Earth was occupied by the Dark Species. They didn't know anything.

"I need a moment with Amy Titus, Rory." the Doctor asked. His voice was that sort of calm that people had right before they were about to lose it. The Doctor was generally a calm man, most likely this just meant he'd once again be getting the judgemental stare. Rory left without a word.

"Please don't take my cake again."

"Three months?"

"Florida's going to be interesting." He looked up and the Doctor was staring at him like he'd planned this. "What? This isn't my fault."

"There was a little girl. She was saying the spaceman was going to eat her."

"That's not my fault, either."

The Doctor spluttered, gesticulating with one hand. "It's not about fault. You see, most people, when they hear a little girl screaming for help, feel compelled to help."

"What are you lot, the ethics committee?" He couldn't put up with this for three months. They were all so desperate to assign him the role of monster, he'd never get a moments peace. "This all happened two hundred years before I was born. As it happens lots of tragedies happened all over the universe before I was born. All will be as it should be."

"You know how to save her."

Ah, there was the crux of the matter. The Doctor wanted to save Melody Pond. It was tempting, so tempting, to let him. Years from now he'd hold River while she cried, a rare moment of weakness where they tried to reconcile how unfair the universe could be. Erasing that day would lift a giant burden off his shoulders. And, of course, destroy the timeline.

Saving Melody Pond. There was no such thing. Here branched two timelines, one where she married the Doctor, one with adventures and wars and Nandy, the other where she was returned to her parents and grew up in Leadworth and became a geography teacher and never once saw the magic of time and space.

River had made her choice.

He met the Doctor's gaze and tried his best to convey his sincerity. "Doctor, I know you think I'm incapable of empathy, but trust me when I say that if there was any way to save that girl you wouldn't be able to hold me back."

"There's no way." He looked devastated by the prospect.

"She's going to die of pneumonia about a year from now. There's nothing you can do to stop that. But she's important, so don't lose sight."

"Pneumonia." The Doctor looks like the he's been punched in the gut. Amy Titus supposed that he was used to cybermen and daleks being the leading cause of fatality. Pneumonia was treatable, something no one should ever die from, let alone the child he was trying to rescue.

"Hey," Amy Titus snapped his fingers. "Focus. Things will go a lot worse for her without your intervention."

"Worse? Worse than dying of an infectious disease at... what, eight? Nine?"

"A lot worse. Keep your head." Compared to the inside of a Silence compound that death was a blessing.

"Right. Right, staying focussed," he breathed. "Letting a little girl die coughing. Right."

Amy Titus turned back to his work. He was such an easy target for them right now. The Doctor knew that he was uninformed about a lot of things and he hated that. Amelia and Rory thought they'd seen the Doctor die in Utah. And River with the death and marriage, reminders of her past and fears for her future. None of them had the patience to be gentle with him.

"How's River holding up?" he asked. The Doctor wouldn't know the specifics but even she wasn't such a good actor that he wouldn't have guessed she was upset.

"Don't." The anger in the Doctor's voice was so sudden and sharp that he looked up. He was so often mild and calm that it was hard to believe the stories but Amy Titus could see it now. The Oncoming Storm. "Don't talk like you know her. Don't ask about her. You don't know anything about us."

Something stubborn and childish surged in his chest. He gritted his teeth to stop himself pointing out that the Doctor had no idea how much he knew. Amy Titus was from their future, he might be a companion or River's father or have been raised on Idris. He could be a long lost Timelord cousin or an omniscient superbeing.

He didn't say any of that. The entire point of this was to get the Doctor to stop asking questions and hopefully get back to Stormcage with all his limbs still attached. River would be assigned to guard him eventually, then he could see for himself.

"Then let me work in peace," he exhaled, trying to dispel some of his anger.

"You're welcome to it."

The Doctor stormed out of the room.

Amy Titus turned up his music, letting the heavy bass vibrate in his breastbone. He closed his eyes for a moment, getting lost in the music, then opened them and shook himself.

Time to get to work.


	5. 05

**River III**

There was an old Earth saying about piloting an aircraft. '98% boredom punctuated by 2% terror.'

Turned out the same could be said for hunting the Silence.

After three months of dingy hotel rooms, bus travel and American food it was almost a welcome relief whenever she looked down to see her arms covered in black marks. Certainly kept her hearts pumping. The TARDIS swung by for relief trips every now and then, mostly so the Doctor could beg her to take guard duty on Amy Titus for a while, but it wasn't often enough to really break up the monotony.

It had been pure, unadulterated and inappropriate joy to throw herself off a fifty storey building. She felt for the first time in months that she was alive again, running with the Doctor, defying time and space. It seemed like she was in the air for an eternity, blood rushing in her ears and terror curling in her gut and she could have sworn, just for a moment, that she was flying.

For a split second she had been so terrified that this younger Doctor wouldn't understand to catch her that suddenly finding herself plunging into the TARDIS swimming pool shocked all the breath out of her. She surfaced floundering, gasping for air. Her dress was not made for swimming.

When she managed to right herself and untangle her legs she looked up to see the Doctor standing at the edge of the water, looking smug.

_Hi__, __honey__. __I__'__m __home__._

_And __what __sort __of __time __do __you __call __this__?_

The exchange was so familiar, a touchstone to tell her there was never any possibility he'd let her fall.

"Not much of a swimmer then, Doctor Song?" he asked.

Some part of her started drowning again when he broke the script. She spat out a mouthful of water and tried for a sardonic smile. "It's been a while since I tried it in evening wear."

"Need a hand?"

"I'll probably live. Did you stop for a shower and a change of clothes before catching me?"

He shrugged, thumbs stuck in his braces. "Had to look my best for you."

"And they say romance is dead." She allowed herself a chuckle and paddled to the edge of the pool. He glanced away as she hauled herself out. She looked at the marks on her arms, blurred beyond recognition by the water. "I seem to have lost count."

"Not to worry. The official count stands at 'lots', bordering on 'heaps'. Amelia and Rory sweated off most of theirs in the bodybags. Not to worry!" He held up a hand to stop her as she flashed him a horrified look. "They were just playing possum."

"How's the prisoner?"

"Drunk. If he turns that music up any louder I'm going to kick him off, mysteries be damned."

Now that he'd mentioned it, River could hear the faint vibrations of a pounding bass, even this far from the workshop. "Who's looking after him?"

"Amy. She's got a way with him. That should worry me, shouldn't it?"

"Probably."

River picked up a towel from the pile by the door and wrapped it around her shoulders. The dress clung to her lower body, frozen and uncomfortable.

She caught the Doctor's gaze trailing down her legs and rolled her eyes. If she'd been trying to look good for him he would have determinedly not noticed but now that she was feeling like a frozen, wet cat he remembered she had an arse.

"I'm going to shower. Care to join me?"

He blushed bright pink and started to stammer out an excuse before he realised she was grinning at him. He huffed. "You don't play fair."

"Neither do you. Quite a pair, aren't we? Go, be clever, I'll join you soon."

He left with a little nod of his head, a secret smirk. She sighed heavily before making her way to one of the many bathrooms. That was another problem with three months out of her cell. She was going to go mad if she didn't get a shag soon.

She made quick work of washing and drying, then pulled on her comfortable clothes and made her way to the console room. She looked like a drowned rat but the promise of interesting things left her with no patience for a hair dryer.

She found Amelia and Rory leaning against the console, their arms folded. The Doctor and Canton were nowhere to be seen. She leaned forward to see what they were looking at, only to find Amy Titus sitting on the stairs, hunched over his work of microcircuitry. He wasn't looking as composed as the last time she'd seen him, he was fidgeting, running his hands through his hair and muttering to himself.

"What happened to his music?" she asked. It was still playing, but quiet enough to talk over.

"The Doctor turned it down," Rory said. "Said it was giving him a headache."

Amy Titus flicked his nose. "Too quiet, too quiet."

He looked up and his eyes locked on hers through his greasy hair. River found herself taking up the same pose as the others, against the console, watching him. He looked so young. Assuming he was human-based he couldn't have been more than thirty, but the way he looked at her was more like a teenager, young and scared. Something about him niggled at the back of her brain. She was missing something. Something right in front of her face.

"It's easy to forget, isn't it?" Amelia asked pensively. "You know, what he did. Is it terrible that I sort of like him?"

Rory shifted uncomfortably. "If it is then I'm terrible, too. He doesn't seem like the sort of person who would..."

"I don't think there is a sort of person who does that, Rory," River said. "There's always something else. Some reason, some excuse."

A contemplative silence fell over them as they all watched Amy Titus work. River hoped the others were thinking the same as her, that they hoped it was the best of reasons. It was irrational, but she desperately didn't want to hate him and in three months the only reason he'd given her to do so was in his prison records.

"Okay, okay." Amy Titus jumped to his feet, trembling. "Okay."

"What is it?" River asked.

"It's done. This should reroute the memory erasure on the... nevermind. It'll work. Where is he? Where _is__he__?_" His voice rose steadily as he talked, breaking and rising until it was almost a screech.

She stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to look at her, trying to centre him. "Amy Titus."

"Why is it so quiet?" he asked.

She cast a glance over her shoulder. Amelia and Rory were staring at them with wary eyes. This was the problem with liking Amy Titus. It could bite her so quickly.

"The Doctor will be back soon," she said firmly. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Can't you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

Amy Titus was almost frantic. "_Everything__._"

"I only hear the TARDIS, dear." _Dear__?_ What was she thinking?

"She's not loud enough. I can... she sings, and it's beautiful, but it's... Can't you hear the stars burning?" The naked desperation in his voice had her automatically squeezing his shoulder for comfort.

"Rory, put his music back on. Amy, more tequila."

"The Doctor said..." Rory trailed off.

"We're out of tequila," Amelia said.

River rounded on them. "Make something happen!"

She spoke more sharply than she intended to and they scurried off. On impulse she wrapped an arm around Amy Titus' shoulders. It reminded her of when she was Melody, first coming into her Timelord body as the Silence tampered with her physiology, when she realised she could feel the world moving under her feet. It had been overwhelming. If tequila and cake had been appropriate for a four-year-old she would have greatly appreciated it.

"Talk to me, Amy," she murmured. "What's going on?"

"It's... it's nothing... it's... I miss my family and it's so quiet."

"You have a family."

"I did. Everything's just adrift now. I miss Nandy." He said the last with a pleading look to her.

She searched for something to say but came up empty. How to console the terrorist missing his family and his girlfriend? His distress was so genuine that it inspired her to want to help him.

"Is this why, Amy? Is this why you do what you do? The quiet?"

He nodded, looking down at her through his fringe, a little boy in a grown man's body. She swallowed thickly. This had been building for a while but now that it was here she was at a complete loss.

One move came to mind and she followed through before thinking too hard. She pulled the spare quantum entangled notepad and handed it to him.

He looked at her in grateful disbelief. "Really?"

"Quickly. The Doctor won't like this."

Amy Titus didn't waste any time. He flung open the pad and started scrawling, his handwriting wild and big.

_I __miss __you__. __I __love __you__. __Please __bring __me __home __soon__. __I __love __you__._

The note disappeared almost instantly and new writing appeared, only slightly more controlled.

_I __miss __you__. __Stay __safe__. __Please __be __careful__. __I __love __you __so __much__. __Always__._

The words made River's hearts ache. Desperate and loving, moments snatched in time. She missed her husband.

She heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor and snatched the pad back. All the tension had sapped out of Amy Titus' frame and he slumped against the railing.

The four others came tromping through the doorway like a herd of elephants.

"Right!" The Doctor clapped. "Amy Titus, this is Canton, please don't speak to him. What have you got for me?"

Canton offered a disinterested wave and Amelia held out a bottle. "All we have is cognac. Why do we have cognac?"

Amy Titus snatched the bottle with one hand and uncorked it with his teeth while using his spare hand to fish around in his pocket. He spoke around the cork. "This goes in your ear."

"My what?"

He spat the cork out. "We only have a half hour, no arguments."

"It's a time machine."

"Half an hour window between personal timelines, we don't need a paradox. This goes in your ear. When you're done on the tesselecta it'll send a pulse, meant to wipe your memory but instead it'll wipe this."

"What's a tesselecta?"

It shouldn't have surprised River that there was a tesselecta here. War criminals everywhere, she supposed.

Amy Titus held up a hand to silence the Doctor. "Shh. You're going to Greystark Hall, you have to be in and out before Amelia and Canton get there. Creepy place, crazy man, can't miss it. You walk up to him, you say in these exact words: 'I want to speak to Nandy.' You say nothing else. He will say some weird shit, he will pretend not to know what you're talking about. You ignore all of that. You want to talk to Nandy. Once they take you aboard –"

"Aboard?"

"Shh. Once they take you aboard you'll meet Nandy and there will be rules. I'm serious about these, I'll be watching and if you break the rules then I'll prematurely fry the circuit, let the pulse do its job and you won't remember anything."

"What kind of rules?"

"First, you know her. Don't let on that you don't. She'll ask about her mother and I, you tell her that we're with her grandmother. She's incredibly young here, _do __not __scare __her__._ You'll know what questions not to ask. Resist the impulse. I'm serious about this. Resist."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "So I'm not allowed to ask any of these unspecified questions or you'll wipe my memory."

"You're up to the task. Come here."

The Doctor hesitated and River was torn between speaking up and letting this run its course. She didn't trust Amy Titus but she didn't have much choice.

The Doctor stepped forward and Amy Titus held up a tiny device to his ear.

"This won't hurt a bit."

The little contraption wormed its way inside the Doctor's ear and he grasped his head. "Ah!"

"I lied," Amy Titus deadpanned.

"Bloody... sod of a... ow!" The Doctor did his little dance around the console as the worm worked its way in. River clenched her fists to stop from reaching out. He wasn't her husband, he didn't want her help.

When the Doctor had calmed down Amy Titus continued. "Got all that? Greaystark Hall, mad bloke in a bowtie but not you, want to talk to Nandy, behave yourself."

"Got it."

"Go before Amelia needs to be there."

River clenched her fists more tightly and looked away. _Stay __safe__. __Please __be __careful__. __I __love __you __so __much__. __Always__._

The Doctor rubbed his hands together, affecting enthusiasm. "Right then. Quick trip to Greystark Hall, I assume someone has the coordinates, then we're back on track. Any objections? No? Great!"

Yes. Loads. Every possible objection that could be made had lodged itself firmly in River's brain but she couldn't breathe a word of it. Half because of spoilers and half because he just wouldn't rest until he met Nandy.

And Dr. Renfrew was a tesselecta?

The Doctor let Amy Titus plug in a set of coordinated and the awful whine of the parking brake left on started up. She'd just have to let this run its course.


	6. 06

**Doctor XI**

Greystark Hall had the market cornered on creepy old house. Big thunderstorm, dilapidated exterior, foreboding shadows. Very spooky. No place for kids, but then the records showed it had been shut down a few years ago.

The red paint on the front door was flaking off, streaks of mould creeping in from the corners. The Doctor knocked on the door, the sound echoing in some huge interior space. He heard shuffling footsteps on a hard floor. It took too long before the door creaked open and a man with beady eyes and a properly raggedy bowtie peered up at him.

"Yes?" He spoke with a thick southern accent.

"I want to speak to Nandy," the Doctor said.

The man looked up at him a long moment, lost in some dementia. "We don't have any children by that name."

The door swung open as he stepped back. The room inside was as huge as it had sounded. Dark. There should have been electricity, lights on the interior, something. It looked like this place hadn't been lived in for years. Everything was covered in dust, the banisters were falling apart from rot.

And the walls.

_GET __OUT__._

_LEAVE __ME __ALONE__._

Nothing good was happening here. He remembered Amy Titus' warning. "I want to speak to Nandy."

"I... I..." the man stuttered, confused. "We don't have a Nandy."

"I want to speak to Nandy." This man was being particularly difficult.

"I'm telling you, there's no Nandy here."

Wouldn't it be just his luck if Amy Titus was having him on?

_GET __OUT__._

Lightning flashed and illuminated the giant stairwell. It seemed to go on forever.

"You have a Nandy and I want to speak to her."

The man stared at him, confused, unspeaking, for so long that he thought whatever was going on upstairs might have stopped. Then he really did stop. His eyes glazed over, he stopped breathing, his face went slack.

The Doctor was about to check if he was still alive when he opened his mouth and a blue light shone out, almost blinding him. There was a mechanical grind and then the world seemed to spin around him.

The sensation was so foreign that he couldn't figure out what was happening. He was floating and falling and spinning and the world was disappearing and reappearing until finally he was standing in some entirely foreign place.

He stumbled before finding his balance, coming up in some corridor which was all steel and flashing lights.

He looked around, trying to find some indication of where he was. It was all uniform and military, the kind of place that would drive him crazy after a few hours. He wasn't given much time to figure it all out before a set of pounding footsteps echoed down the hall.

He just had time to turn toward them when he was overwhelmed by the smell of honeysuckles and a mess of honey blond hair and pulled into a bone-crushing hug. "Daddy!"

The word short-circuited his brain.

_Daddy__._

"Nandy?" he breathed.

"Look at you!" She pulled back and held him by the shoulders. "You're so young, practically a baby."

She kept talking, babbling faster than he could understand but he couldn't hear any of it over the blood rushing in his ears. His daughter. It felt like a hollow pit had formed in his chest of joy and sorrow and some pain he couldn't identify.

She was beautiful. Dressed in an ill-fitting justice department uniform, she looked like she belonged in a puffy pink dress and lace gloves. Her frizzy hair was falling out of its braid, sticking up at all angles around a cherubic face, her wide mouth working furiously as she babbled and expressive blue eyes tracing his face again and again. Those eyes were genuinely beautiful. And familiar.

But the thing that caught his eye the most were the markings. Pale white lines that ran in symmetrical patterns across her face and down her hands. They were barely visible, just the faintest trace of time etched into her skin. He'd seen them before on soothsayers. Timelords overexposed to the untempered schism.

She was a _Timelord__. _

"I know you hate tesselectas," she was saying. "But we're after Kovarian and I received special dispensation. I'm only observing and I just have to do this after what she did to mum and Amy. Where are they? Are they safe?"

A Timelord. Not a baby accidentally made and doomed to die, not burning on Gallifrey, not driven mad. A real, proper Timelord, his daughter, brimming with life, having adventures, so happy to see him.

It took him a moment too long to realise what she'd said, her big blue eyes searching his face curiously.

"Oh. Yes, right. They're with your grandmother, safe."

"Oh thank goodness," she sighed.

As his brain worked through the information the questions began to surface. Amy Titus was right to warn him. He knew he couldn't ask the one all important question he desperately needed to know.

Who was her mother?

"How old are you, now?" he asked. "It's been so long."

She smiled cheekily. "You shouldn't ask a lady her age, daddy. But I'm two hundred and three."

Without thinking about it he grabbed her and pulled her into another hug, fighting off tears. Two hundred years old. He'd have a family. Sometime in the future he had a daughter who would live to see two hundred. More than that. Amy Titus had described this version as _very__young_. How old would she get? She seemed to think he'd be travelling with her mother, did he have a wife? Other children?

"You're beautiful."

She pried herself out of his arms, laughing. "What's gotten into you? I thought you'd at least be mad about the tesselecta."

"I'm not mad," he said, unsure what he was supposed to be mad about. He didn't care. She could be doing anything, he wouldn't care. Two hundred years. He kept her safe for two hundred years. Who was her mother? When would he meet her? "I'm just... I'm so happy to see you."

"How long has it been for you? When is this? You're running awfully close to your own timestream by being here."

"It's fine. Amy Titus is guiding me."

"Amy's with you? Can I see him?"

"I don't think so, he's in sync with a much older version of you." He closed his eyes, all the puzzle pieces falling into place. Nandy inherited the TARDIS. When he died she would take the old girl on her own adventures.

He laughed at himself. So worried about this stranger on his TARDIS. His own daughter was the monster in the shadows.

How could she possibly have become a soothsayer? He wouldn't let any child of his anywhere near the untempered schism. It was no wonder she'd screwed up the timelines, the tides of time barely touched her kind.

"You don't look well, are you alright? How long has it been?"

She had her tiny hands on his shoulders, holding him up. He laughed at himself again. His head was swimming, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, he was dizzy and overemotional and just felt like a sit down and a cup of tea. This was so much to take in.

"Too long," he said finally. "Oh, you're so beautiful. Have you missed me? And your mother?"

"So much. When we've found Kovarian I'll go see her. I'm sure she could use the help with the baby."

"Baby..." he sighed. Baby. He had a wife with a baby somewhere out there in time. He wanted to ask for coordinates. He wanted to run back to the TARDIS, plug in some numbers and walk out to find a wife and baby waiting for him. Wait, why wasn't he there with them? Where was his future self?

Nandy was still talking. "I think we're barking up the wrong tree here, anyway. There's not much proof she was ever on Earth, and we'll have to give back Dr. Renfrew eventually. Don't worry about him, he's fine, his memory is so fried he won't even notice missing a few days."

He didn't understand anything she was saying but he couldn't stop listening as if she was talking quantum physics. She was off on some adventure of her own. In a mechanical man? He didn't want to ask, she clearly thought he knew the situation. It was amazing. She was amazing.

He didn't know what to say to her. The word 'spoilers' echoed around in his brain. He couldn't ask anything, couldn't tell her anything. The only thing he could know was that she missed her mother and apparently hated someone named Kovarian.

"Nandy..." he interrupted her. "Are you happy?"

"Of course I am." She smiled at him, bemused. She reached up and brushed his cheek. "Daddy, why are you crying?"

"I don't..." He hadn't realised he was crying. He needed to leave. This was his daughter, but not yet. Another time, another version of him, some far off future had these people waiting for him. He hadn't earned this yet and he was only endangering it all the longer he stayed. She was a soothsayer, a bull in the china shop of timelines.

"Two hundred years and I've never known you to be lost for words. Whatever's going on, you'll work it out. Or is it just..? It must be so hard to see little Melody. I know how hard you tried. _Mum_ knows how hard you tried. I'm helping to make it right on this end, it's all we can do."

"I need to go."

"Mm, guess I'll be seeing Nana soon, wouldn't want you still on board for it. I love you, daddy. We'll talk again soon."

"I love you." He realised the words were true as he said them. He loved this bouncy blonde with white markings and big teeth. He loved her in a way he hadn't felt in centuries. A burning, dizzy sensation bloomed in his chest. He wanted to meet her mother, to fall madly in love, to have a baby girl and raise her up to a centuries-old justice department tagalong.

"I'll get the boys to deboard you. Don't be a stranger." She raised he wrist to her mouth and spoke into some device, asking some unseen force to let him off.

"I love you," he repeated.

"It won't be long. Bye!" She gave him a cheery wave and was already walking away when he was overtaken with blue light again.

He barely felt it as he was transported back to Greystark House, he was already so disoriented. He staggered but found his feet. The little man-robot stood in front of him, expressionless.

If he'd had the presence of mind he would have scanned the contraption, found out more, but instead he found himself just nodding politely and stumbling back into the open air. The shock of cold was welcome, he'd become over warm without realising it.

A grin bloomed on his face, so broad his cheeks hurt. He couldn't seem to control it. He skipped back to the TARDIS, managing not to walk into its cloaked shell.

Amy, Rory and River were all hovering around the console, worried about him. Worried! Oh, it had taken all of five minutes for him to forget what worried felt like. He grabbed Amelia and swept her around in his arms without even asking Rory's permission. He could hear himself laughing.

He released Amy, whirled around and grabbed River by the face. He planted a kiss on her forehead, ignoring her surprised expression.

"A daughter," he laughed.

The look of shock on her face was so complete it was funny. She pressed a hand to her stomach. "What?"

"I'm going to have a daughter. A beautiful, bubbly, Timelord daughter. She is so beautiful, River."

Amy laughed. "That's who Nandy is? Your daughter?"

"Yes!" He giggled and turned back to her. "In a robotic man in a separate timeline. Amelia Pond, you're going to be an aunt."

Rory frowned. "So if your future daughter is a Timelord, does that mean there's a... Time...lady hanging about somewhere?"

"It does look that way. The future's an adventure, isn't it? Where is Canton?"

"He's with Amy Titus," Rory gestured vaguely into the belly of the TARDIS.

The Doctor's euphoria ebbed a little at that. "Canton is watching Amy Titus?"

"He's good with criminals," River said. "And Amy Titus is not doing well."

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't notice? Whatever's wrong with him is getting worse. We need to get him back to Stormcage before he decides he doesn't like the look of one of these buildings."

The Doctor paused in thought, the bursting, dizzy sensation getting heavier in his chest. He couldn't ask too many questions, he knew that. For all intents and purposes he had no problem with the idea of Nandy running around his TARDIS as much as she pleased.

But she and Amy Titus were in love.

It was a splinter under his skin. It didn't make any sense. Bright, smiley Nandy and disturbed, homicidal Amy Titus. Why? Why would she get anywhere near him, let alone get attached?

He shook his head. Save the world, then sort out his daughter.

His daughter! The thought still boggled the mind.

"Right then. Rory, go get Canton. If we need to get a prisoner back to Stormcage, then let's send the Silence back where they came from quickly."


	7. 07

**Doctor XI**

The end of a good adventure was always a bit of a rush as they wound down from the adrenaline and tension. The world was saved, Amelia was back with them, Canton was safely home and Amy Titus' slow descent into complete mania hadn't become dangerous yet.

The Doctor was flying them back to the Stormcage, despite River's objections. She thought he'd land them on Mars or in the middle of a supernova. No faith.

"A job well done, eh?" he asked River.

She had just been leaning against the console, staring into space, and looked over at his words. She gave him a tired smile. "All in a day's work."

The TARDIS ground to a halt, the parking brake whinging all the way just to annoy River, and the Doctor made his way to the door. It was barely open when he frowned. The air smelled wrong. He inhaled deeply.

"Manhattan, 32nd century," he said. "Well, that's unexpected."

He pushed out through the door and the rest of them followed. Sexy never took them anywhere without reason, but she didn't generally delay returning to Stormcage, she knew how River liked her rest. Also, Amy Titus was genuinely becoming a problem. A mess of tics and mumbling, he had to be returned soon.

It was night time in New York, the island overwhelmed with skyscrapers to the point where it didn't really have a skyline. He didn't care for late Earth, it was overcrowded and ugly. The outer colonies were much more hospitable.

"I've been here before," Amy Titus said contemplatively, looking around. He looked hard at the tops of the buildings, seemingly searching for something, then frowned. "Oh. No, not yet."

The young man was breathing hard. The Doctor had seen his condition before, it was only more obvious with every passing day. He was an addict. To something. Something they couldn't give him. After three months living in the TARDIS it was like even standing up was an intolerable effort.

The Doctor took out his sonic and scanned, looking for any abnormality that he could find. He came up with nothing. They were in some sort of park, the tiny little excuses for nature that were the last remnants of natural Earth. It was empty.

He was about to suggest they take a walk and see if anything became apparent when Amy Titus slammed his fist against the TARDIS. He was leaning against it, one arm covering his eyes.

River shot the Doctor a nervous glance and he nodded toward her.

He stepped up and hesitantly pressed his hand to Amy Titus' shoulder. The man flinched.

"Amy," he kept his voice low and soothing. "We're going to get you home soon."

Amy Titus looked at him, eyes completely wild, barely seeing him. His chest was heaving, his hair plastered to his face with sweat. He looked like he was running a fever. The Doctor didn't like to argue with his TARDIS, but this man needed to get back to prison. He had to take him back.

Amy Titus' eyes suddenly focused, looking at something over his shoulder. "Oh, there I am."

The Doctor whirled around, images of clockroaches flashing before his eyes. He did not want to deal with two Amy Titus'. But there was no one. Amy Titus was looking up.

A horrible thought occurred to him and he stood transfixed, looking up at one of the skyscrapers as it began to glow. It was just a faint shimmer at first, barely noticeable, but it was getting brighter.

He knew that he had to get them inside, they couldn't see this, but he was frozen as the glow became brighter and brighter. There was no sound, not even a hum, the light just shone until it was dazzling, slowly focusing into one radiant point of light.

A blinding flash exploded across the city and when the stars stopped bursting in front of the Doctor's eyes the building was gone like it had never been there.

Amelia's horrified cry was just a muffled background noise. He was dimly aware of Rory grabbing her and holding her face against his neck, but the damage was already done. They'd seen it. River had a hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide.

He didn't know what to do. What had happened hadn't sunk in, he knew he needed to react to this but he was just... numb.

"How many people?" he asked, his voice coming out hoarse.

"One thousand, six hundred and sixty one," Amy Titus sighed. He slumped against the TARDIS, finally calm. This was it, this was his addiction and he'd taken a hit. A hit to the tune of more than a thousand lives.

Now his breathing was heavy for a whole new reason. He seemed transfixed by the empty space where the building used to be, his eyes glazed over as he traced the ghost outline. He was high.

"I need to... I need..." he was talking and walking forwards at the same time, staggering toward the bomb site.

The Doctor was slow to react, in shock, his hands felt numb. He didn't move fast enough to stop the man as he broke into a run. Amy Titus was fast, so much faster than any human could be. Faster than the Doctor could run.

His mind scrambled for a solution for a split second before a flash of movement in the corner of his eye brought his thoughts to a halt.

River took off after Amy Titus at a pace he couldn't believe.

His stuttering mind couldn't work through what he was seeing. She wasn't just as fast as him, within a few strides she was gaining ground. He knew that she was strong and used to a fight, but this wasn't right, it wasn't human.

Amy Titus was almost at the edge of the park when she caught him, one hand wrapping around his bicep.

He swung around, half-wild, and threw a punch. Even from a distance it was easy to see how strong that blow would be, his entire frame going taught with the force of it, muscles in stark relief under his skin. His fist connected with River's jaw and the Doctor heard a strangled sound from his own throat.

It was awful to see her take a hit like that, but his stomach dropped as she rolled with the punch and sprung to her feet as if she hadn't even felt it. Blood was dripping from her mouth but she didn't wipe it away, instead using her energy to send a punch toward Amy Titus' face. He blocked it with his forearm but she was already bent to elbow him in the solar plexus, sending him staggering back.

The Doctor's feet were carrying him forward long before he could even begin to come up with a way to stop this. They were going to kill each other.

How in hell was River doing this? She had to be in her forties. A human woman shouldn't be able to go up against a man like Amy Titus at the peak of her physical health, much less when she was getting on in years. But she wasn't going against him, she was clearly winning. As he got closer he could hear their fists connecting, the sound of fists hitting muscle and bone, their grunts of pain.

"Stop!" he yelled, not coming up with anything better. "Both of you!"

They both looked at him tiredly, bleeding and bruised, losing interest in their bout. He stared at River a long moment, trying to decipher her. She had a nasty shiner on one eye, blood blooming beneath the skin.

"What? _What__?_" Amy Titus all but roared at him. "What in hell do you want from me?"

"What are you? Nothing could have done that. That bomb couldn't be placed by an organic being. There is no species that could achieve that kind of precision." He didn't know why that question was the first to come to his mind, but it was and anything would do to stop him beating on River.

Amy Titus laughed a bitter, hysterical laugh, swinging his arm in a wide gesture. "What are you imagining, Doctor? With Nandy. Can I just ask you that? In your head, are you going to get a cottage in Leadworth and work at the local shop for a couple of decades until its safe to take her with you? Or are you thinking you'll take a toddler along to fight Daleks?"

"Just answer my question." The Doctor wasn't ready to admit to himself that he didn't have an answer to that.

"You have pissed off _everyone__, __everywhere__._ There are a dozen species whose whole armies are mobilised to do nothing but put you out of action. So how did you end up with a grown daughter like that? She thinks guns are for decoration!"

"I'll protect her!"

"You? _You__?_" Amy Titus advanced on him, face alight with anger. "You are an ungrateful son of a bitch, has anyone ever told you that? A hypocrite and a liar. I protect Nandy. Her mother protects her. It takes blood, enough to drown in, but we have kept her safe so that you can drop out of the sky when you feel like it and find a daughter who you think is worth having."

The Doctor swallowed thickly. Amy Titus had always been polite. Sometimes sarcastic, sometimes manic, but never angry. Now it looked fit to swallow him whole.

But he wasn't the only one who could get angry. "Are you trying to justify what you do? You just killed sixteen hundred people! There has to be another way, I would find another way!"

"In six months time Amelia Pond is going to have her baby dissolve in her arms. I want you to remember this night when that happens and tell her all about your moral high ground."

"Amy!" River cried out, horrified.

The Doctor felt a chill settle in his chest. No, that wouldn't happen. He wouldn't let that happen. He knew Amelia wasn't with them, that she was pregnant somewhere and in trouble, but he would find her, he'd make it right. He couldn't lose Amelia, he wouldn't lose her baby. Amy Titus was bitter and mad, the future wasn't set in stone.

"Oh, don't give me that," Amy Titus snarled at her. "You're as bad as him. Your great and wonderful Doctor. More important to you than anything else. So important you'd level a gun at my head."

"I don't know you," she said.

"Don't play stupid, River Song, it doesn't suit you. Do you know what it's felt like the last three months, watching you insinuate yourself where you're not wanted? Pretending they care about you, that they love you. You embarrass yourself."

For the first time that night River looked like she'd been hit. Her face went white and she stepped back, her eyes fixed on Amy Titus.

It was strange, like the whole dynamic between them had shifted. The Doctor hadn't realised until that moment how River seemed to gravitate toward him whenever she was close, like he was always in the corner of her eye. It was an unexpected loss. It was like she didn't notice he was standing right there.

Amy Titus' anger had sapped. A look of contrition flashed across his face and faded into hurt. "You knew who I was the moment you heard about that cathedral. There have to be a few men named Amy Titus, but an anti-church terrorist named Amy Titus? Just one. You know me."

He advanced on her and she started shaking her head. "No. I don't know you."

"Is this how your parents felt at Demons Run?" he asked, invading her personal space. "Did they ask you who you killed? Why?"

"I haven't done Demons Run."

"But you've seen them since. Did they ask? Did they care? They probably felt just what you're feeling right now. That you couldn't be theirs. That you had to be someone else's disappointment. Not their baby."

"No, it's not like that." River was crying, silent tears streaming down her cheeks as she kept shaking her head in denial.

"Leave her alone," the Doctor said. He didn't know what was happening, but he didn't like this.

Amy Titus ignored him. He grabbed River by the wrists. She struggled against him but he held firm and pressed her hands to his chest, holding them there. "Tell me my name, River Song. You don't need a file."

"I wouldn't let them take you," she said, her voice hoarse, almost begging. "They won't get you."

"It's already happened. Say it. My name. Amy... Titus..."

She pressed her hands to his chest and slumped, the fight going out of her. "Song."

Amy Titus pulled her into a hug, supporting her weight as she wept against his chest. He cradled her so gently and buried his face in her hair. "I've missed you, mum."

"I'm so sorry," she gasped.

The Doctor felt like he was intruding. River's son. That hurt in a way he hadn't expected. He'd always thought that she was... that they would...

He'd just found out that his daughter was everything he'd ever wanted and now she was finding out that her son was a terrorist. And they were... _His_ daughter and _River__'__s_son. He hadn't seen that coming. Did that make them in-laws?

He let out a great sigh. His troubles had just multiplied exponentially. Amy Titus was right. River had twelve thousand life sentences and he'd never asked why. The two of them together felt more than justified in their crimes and now they had unquestionably gained each others' loyalty. He needed to get them back to Stormcage so that he could start doing damage control.

He had to fix whatever led him to lose Amelia's baby.

"River," he said gently. "We need to leave."

She opened her eyes and fixed him with a look of such intense anger that it nearly stopped his hearts. She knew something that he didn't.

She said nothing, and without releasing Amy Titus from her embrace she reached for her wrist and activated her vortex manipulator.

In a puff of smoke, two murderers disappeared to somewhere in time and space.


	8. 08

**Catastrophe VIII**

For a moment Amy Titus didn't think they'd moved. The air tasted similar, it was still dark, the sounds of the city all around them and the grass under their feet. He pulled back from River to see they hadn't really moved, at least not in space. They were still in the park in Manhattan but the whole city had changed. Mid 20th century at a guess.

River took a few shaky steps away and collapsed onto a park bench, her head in her hands. He sat next to her, letting her take her time to process everything. This wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to know in advance how badly this all turned out.

"It's not all bad," he said. "It's not. Our family is really wonderful and... and Nandy says in the future I'm not in jail."

"Is this you or her?" River asked, one hand on her belly.

"Me. She won't be born for a long time."

She licked her lips, gazing off into the distance. "Do they make me a ganger?"

"No. They take you about four years into the pregnancy." He didn't want her to know that but it all seemed so pointless now. All the secrets and lies. He didn't want to lie, he just wanted his mum.

"When do I get you back?"

"Sixteen years. I fight them, mum. I fight them so hard. They didn't want to make the same mistake they made with you, they didn't want me to get attached to the Doctor. So they made me use the bombs. I can't not, I just have to, it gets so loud inside my head that I can't stop myself, I need to tear up time and space. But I don't bomb him like they wanted. I can fight them that much."

She cupped his face in one hand and gave him a watery smile. "I know. I know you'll be strong. Look at you. You don't look a thing like us, how many times have you regenerated?"

"Seven."

"How old are you?"

He swallowed. She wasn't going to like this part. "Twenty-eight."

A single, choked sob escaped her lips and she clapped a hand to her mouth. He heard her moan of grief even as she tried to stifle it. "Did it hurt?"

"No. Not most of the time. They just wanted to study regeneration, they mostly did it by lethal injection."

"I'm so sorry." She seized him suddenly, pulling him into an awkward hug, nearly crushing the air from his lungs. "I swore this would never happen. I swore I wouldn't let them take you. I thought between us we could keep you safe."

"It's alright, it's alright." He could feel himself crying even though he wanted to stay strong for her. "I don't go to plan but the others do. The Doctor tried. He really tried."

"You don't call him dad."

Amy Titus shook his head sadly. "I sometimes get so angry. I try not to. I really try, but he's free and we're not. It's so unfair."

"He loves you. That version of him is so young, he doesn't know yet. But you should have seen his face when I told him I was pregnant. The real Doctor, _our_ Doctor."

"Not so mad about me now, though, is he? You tell him you're pregnant and he's thinking of Nandy. The perfect little girl. He's not thinking of me." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I shouldn't have said those things to you, about your parents."

She pulled back and gave him a sardonic smile. "I'm not really a mother until my son's had a temper tantrum at me."

He looked down at her face where the bruises were blossoming. He was the worst kind of cad, she must have been in pain. He hadn't meant to hit her, it had just been instinct, but then she knew that. They had the same training. She was so young, so much younger than he'd ever seen her. It was true that he found his way home at sixteen, but to a version of her so far into the future that she was barely recognisable.

"You need a bag of frozen peas."

She smiled genuinely. "So do you. You should see your face."

"Where are we?"

"Manhattan, 1978. I have family here and the TARDIS can't land, I don't want the young Doctor following us."

"Family?"

"A brother. Don't ask because I don't know. I'm sure he'd like to meet you."

She eased up gingerly from the bench. They'd both be black and blue all over by morning. He stood and held out and arm for her. She took it and they could have been any mother and son taking an evening stroll through the park. It was nice. He had missed her.

She hailed a taxi at the street and he laughed. He'd learned how to run and fight and engineer from the Silence, but his mother had taught him to always be prepared. No matter what situation one was in, it always apparently paid to have a cab fare appropriate for 1978 America.

They settled into the back seat and he felt like he hadn't sat down for weeks. All his ribs were tender, her leg where she'd wrenched him around, his head was pounding.

"Did you get my notebook?" he asked.

"No, I'm sorry. Can Nandy get it?"

He shrugged. "She'll probably be too curious about what the Doctor will use it for. It's alright, I know some safe spots where I can visit her, we'll sort something else out. I'll modify your vortex manipulator, that old piece of junk needs an upgrade."

River shot an affronted glare at him. "It's served me well enough so far."

"I could build a better one when I was six." He threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. He'd never known her when he was small enough to cuddle up to her, but the opposite worked, he thought. She seemed grateful for the contact. It had been a long day for both of them.

The old city was beautiful at night. He had only seen Earth three times before and he found it enchanting. The home of his grandparents. If he had his timelines right this was where Amelia and Rory would spend most of their lives, this uncle was probably their son. River hadn't done Manhattan 2012 yet, so she wouldn't know that. It was surprising she knew about him at all.

His eyes felt heavy, he could sleep for a week. It was so stupid of him to have blown up at the Doctor like that. The more the adrenaline wore off the more he felt like an idiot. Of course it had scared them to actually witness one of his bombs. He hadn't wanted Nana to see that. He just wanted a bottle of tequila, a really long sleep and a clear head to figure out how to fix this. At least he had his mother to help him.

"It's going to be alright," River mumbled sleepily against his shoulder.

He smiled. She was probably reading his mind. "I know. It always works out eventually."

The car ride was over quickly. They pulled up in front of one of the tall apartment buildings. River paid the fare and they stepped outside. It had started to rain. He held a hand above her face as they ran to the overhang. It was an old building with a set of well worn buzzers and a large metal gate protecting the inner doorway.

She pressed a button and a few seconds later the intercom crackled to life.

"Yes?"

"It's River."

With a buzz the outer gate unlocked. She ushered him in and toward the elevator. It was a grinding, rusty thing that looked like it hadn't been serviced in a few decades but it took them to the fifth floor without incident.

River knocked on a door and it opened to reveal a man about the same age as Amy Titus with overly groomed hair and a big smile. His face lit up when he saw them.

"River." He grabbed her in a quick hug. "Getting into trouble as always?"

"Tony." She returned the hug and then pulled back. "This is my son, Amy. I don't suppose you have any steak?"

"A son?"

"I just found out myself."

Tony shook his head, half-laughing and stretched out his hand for Amy Titus to shake. "Right, don't want to know. Nice to meet you, Amy. Come on in, I'll see what's in the refrigerator."

He held the door open for them and Amy Titus offered him a nervous smile with his handshake as he walked inside. He hadn't had the best experiences with meeting family recently. But then Tony didn't have a copy of his prison records so he supposed it couldn't go quite so badly as the last time.

The apartment was so antiquated. There couches were all upholstered in proper fabric, the floor was carpet and the furniture was real wood. There was a television in one corner, small and probably black and white. No remote. He didn't know how people lived like this but all the organic material made it seem strangely luxurious.

He sat down and River joined him, still clutched against his side. He didn't want to let go yet.

"We're going to have a problem," River murmured to him when her brother left the room. "You told the Doctor that baby Melody is a ganger."

He sighed. She was right, that was a problem they couldn't ignore. "I guess your trip to Demons Run has changed a bit."

"That could change my entire timeline. He won't know who I am."

"It's fine, Berlin is only a few months after. He'll catch up quickly."

Tony walked back into the room carrying two steaks. He grinned as he handed Amy Titus one of them. Amy Titus gratefully pressed the cold meat against his face, the burn from River's impressive punches instantly soothed. River groaned with relief.

"So, do I want to know the story?" Tony asked.

River smirked. "Well, we were in 32nd century Manhattan at the site of an alleged terrorist attack..."

"Don't want to know. Got it. Let me get you some tea? Brits drink tea, right? I think I have some."

"Thank you, Tony. I'm sorry to drop in on you like this, it was unexpected to say the least. Mum and Dad are doing well. So young, they were practically babies."

He gave her a dashing American smile like he was posing for a toothpaste ad. "Haven't had me yet then?"

"Not even close."

"And Amy? You've had him already? A house full of time travellers, the questions I get to ask."

She smiled tightly. "Pregnant with him, as it stands, actually."

"Congratulations! I'd get you a gift if I knew anything you wanted. Well, a cup of tea is a good start, I suppose, let me run and get that for you."

Amy Titus felt a grin pull at his mouth unwillingly. Tony was human, living a human life. How often did River visit him that he was completely comfortable with this sort of talk? He found himself laughing into his steak. "You have to teach me how to hit like that."

River started laughing too. "Maybe when you're older."

Sitting on a sofa in the middle of his heretofore unknown uncle's apartment in 1978 with a steak on his face, laughing with his mother over their fistfight. When he could say it was one of his stranger days, that really meant something, and this was a strange day.

"You're alright with tea?" River asked quietly, sobering.

He nodded. "It wasn't quite the same as setting the charges myself, but it was... I'm fine. Grandma takes care of me."

"You call the TARDIS grandma."

He laughed with her again, their chuckles mutually contagious. "It's how you introduced me to her. It was an odd conversation."

"You remind me of Rory."

"Is that a compliment?"

"I think so."

Tony came back with two cups of tea to find them helplessly shaking with laughter against each other. "Can I share in the joke?"

"Just laughing over how absurd our day has been. Unusual even for us."

"Sure you don't need something a little stronger than tea?"

River shook her head, then rested it against Amy Titus' shoulder. "I think a drop of alcohol would push me over the edge, to be honest. Amy was quite a surprise."

"An adult son. Wish that was the first time I'd heard that sort of surprise. Tell me about yourself, Amy. Nice to know I have a nephew." Tony lit a cigarette and the smell was instantly offensive but Amy Titus refrained from commenting. "What do you do?"

"I'm a temporal engineer."

"Oh."

Amy Titus cleared his throat and took a sip of his tea, trying to think of a way to explain this to a human. "I make things that make time travel less dangerous. It's sort of complicated."

"Well, I guess it's all a bit beyond me. You Timelords, lovely relatives, not easy to dazzle with my wits. How long are you planning to stay?" He shone that toothpaste ad smile again. Amy Titus wondered fleetingly if he'd show him how to do that hairstyle. His loose, greasy hair was making him feel shabby. The split lip and bruised jaw probably didn't help.

"Just until the bruises heal, if it's not an imposition," River said. "We have some matters to attend to after that."

"As if I'd ever turn my big sister out. Is it your first time in the 20th century, Amy?"

"Yes."

"I'll show you the sights. Cars with wheels, demure girls, reckless disregard for health and safety. You'll love it."

Amy Titus smiled tiredly. "Thank you."

"You two look half-asleep already. I've just got the one guest room. You don't mind taking the sofa, do you, Amy?"

"I..." Amy Titus felt himself flush. Any psychologist would have a field day with him right now but he didn't want to be separated from River. It had been years since he'd seen her. "Can we share?"

River squeezed his shoulder. "Of course we can. Thank you, Tony, you're a life saver."

"Don't let me keep you. I'll see you both when you're more alive in the morning."

Amy Titus really needed to find out his secret to looking so dashing at this time of night. Maybe there would have been less disparity if he hadn't recently received a beatdown from his mother.

River gave polite goodnights from both of them and Tony took back their face-steaks. She lead him by the hand to a dark bedroom. He all but collapsed onto the bed. He was so tired. In the haze of exhaustion he faintly hear the sounds of her in the ensuite.

The door softly clicked closed behind her as she came back into the room and slid onto the bed beside him, not bothering with the covers. She was being quiet, probably thought he was already asleep, but he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. Even though he hadn't had nearly enough time with her, the smell of her hair was comfortingly familiar. A combination of Stormcage shampoo and his mother.

"I really screwed things up today, didn't I?" he mumbled to her sleepily.

"Shh." She ran a hand up and down his back. "You should never have been put in that position."

"How are we going to fix this?"

"We'll figure something out. You're my baby, it's my job to help you fix mistakes." She was silent for a long moment. "I miss your father."

"I miss him, too."

He felt her smile. "Go to sleep. We'll figure it out in the morning."

He was powerless to disobey, his eyelids heavy, his cravings sated and the smell of his mother all around him. Within minutes the black took him.


	9. 09

**Doctor XI**

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been angry. Not like this. He already had the armies, the base under control, Amelia's captors in his custody, but it wasn't enough to calm him down. These people hadn't paid yet, not really.

He had thought, of course he had thought, that maybe this little Timelord would grow up to be Nandy's mother. She was half human, but that might not matter. When Vastra had explained Melody's genetic makeup to him everything seemed to settle comfortably into place. He'd celebrate when he'd made sure she was safe.

Amy Titus still taunted him from the back of his mind. He'd captured Demons Run without a drop of blood spilled. Now it was time to tell Amelia all about his moral high ground.

He had run those words over and over in his head. The baby that Rory was currently rescuing from the nursery was a ganger, he was sure of it. He had the silurians searching the entire base for Madame Kovarian's alternate escape route but he needed to do more. In just a few words Amy Titus had managed to make him feel like a stupid child with this whole endeavour. Naive enough to think he could do it without blood and selfish enough to try.

He could. He just had to find the real Melody. He could protect his family.

Part of him was tempted just to take out Amy Titus' notebook from his jacket and ask Nandy for the answer.

"Doctor," Jenny strode up to him. "We have a girl here who thinks she knows where Melody is."

He looked over her shoulder to see Strax intimidating a young church soldier. The girl looked harried the way only a person arguing with a sontaran could. He brushed past Jenny. "Where is she? Where did they take her?"

The girl looked up from Strax, her eyes wide. "The lower tier, there's an auxiliary exit on the side facing the star."

The Doctor grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. "Thank you. Rory! Come on, we're saving your daughter!"

"What about me?" Amelia asked, the ganger Melody still bundled up in her arms. "What do I do?"

"That's not Melody's body but it is her mind. Keep her calm. We'll bring her back to you."

Amelia nodded silently and he gave her hand a quick squeeze before heading off toward the exit. He'd take Melody back personally.

Rory kept step with him as they jogged through the base, but he looked troubled. He shouldn't have. He should have looked determined, scared, angry. There was something on his mind other than his daughter.

"What is it?"

Rory looked at him. "What?"

"You're not saying something."

"Amy Titus said we'd meet his mother at Demons Run. Said she'd have a face like a komodo dragon."

"So we can assume when River shows up that she will have had a very bad day."

"I don't think he was talking about River. I think he meant that dragon lady. Kovarian. Do you think she got Amy Titus? Is that what she's planning to do to Melody? Make her like him?"

It made a certain amount of sense. Amy Titus could have been conditioned to be the way he was. Nandy had been after Kovarian for her crimes against Amy and her mother. But time could be rewritten and Amy Titus had given them what they needed to rewrite this.

"It doesn't matter," the Doctor said firmly. "Because she's not getting off this base with Melody."

They found two silurians slumped in the corridor, the patrol that had been checking this sector. The Doctor stopped to check them. Still alive. He was glad for them, but it gave him the chills. Kovarian or the headless monks wouldn't leave them alive. That was something, a warning sign, there was something wrong, something he hadn't accounted for.

Today was not a day when he wanted a surprise.

He doubled his pace, Rory clanking along beside him in his Roman outfit. His hearts sped up in anxiety. There was no way the Silence could get ahead of them, they had foreknowledge.

They were nearly at the far exit when they heard the thrum of a dozen soldiers marching in the distance. Kovarian. They had her. Just a little further.

They rounded the corner and just managed to stop in time to prevent them colliding with two other people.

A moment of silence descended on the four of them. River and Amy Titus stared at them, as surprised to see them as they were.

"Oh, dear," River murmured. She backed up a few steps and levelled a gun at him.

"What are you doing, River?" he asked, a note of warning in his voice. This was supposed to be the day he found out who she was. Now she was standing between him and Melody.

Amy Titus was just a second slower to react, but he fell into step beside her, his gun trained on Rory. They looked like they were just a few days after they had run away in Manhattan. Their bruises were yellow and faded, their clothes fresh but vintage and Amy Titus sported an over-gelled pompadour for which the Doctor could offer no explanation.

"Stand behind me, mum," Amy Titus said.

River made no move to comply. She looked at the Doctor, her expression grim. "I'm sorry, my love. We can't let you rescue Melody."

The Doctor took a step forward, all his fury bubbling just below the surface. The sting of betrayal was sudden and vicious. "Is this who you are, then? Silence? Was this _whole__thing_ just some game?"

He had really thought she cared about him. He didn't like being played for a fool, but this was worse than just that. He had cared about her. Over the years of wondering about her, trying to puzzle her out, his mind had concocted thousands of scenarios, ranging from the bland to the surreal and in nearly every one she'd been cast as a someone he really, properly cared about.

Just the tiniest part of him had wondered if she was setting him up to betray him. He had practically discarded the thought and now it was going to cost him Melody.

Oh, Amelia. She'd trusted him.

"I'm not Silence," River said, fighting to keep her voice even. "I can't ask you to trust me this time, I know that. But this will make sense to you eventually."

"Eventually?" Rory stepped forward, completely ignoring the gun. If there was one man angrier than the Doctor, it was Melody's father. He looked like he was getting ready to use that gladius. "When is _eventually_, River? When Melody's been turned into _him__?_"

Amy Titus stepped forward – he was so big – in one step he had the barrel of his gun pressed against Rory's forehead.

The Doctor froze instinctively, as though even breathing would cause to flinch like a frightened animal and leave Rory's brains spattered across the bulkhead. Rory was breathing hard but stock still, his anger barely contained enough to stop himself getting killed.

Amy Titus spoke in a low voice, his eyes fixed on Rory's face. "She won't shoot you. I will."

The Doctor wanted to yell out his impotent rage. If he tried to get past these two then Rory was as good as dead. Maybe him, as well. Ten minutes ago he would have sworn River would lay down her life for his but now he'd lay even odds on her putting a bullet in his brain.

He could have sworn she loved him.

"You don't have to do this." Maybe she did. Maybe she was telling the truth and all this was serving some greater purpose. It wouldn't be his first time manipulating someone to his advantage. He looked at her, imploring, looking for any crack in her shell. "Please, River. I can't fail Amelia like this. Please."

He saw her throat bob as she swallowed. Maybe he was getting through. She had to see how ridiculous this was, how insane, how dangerous.

Somewhere not far from them the sound of an airlock engaging echoed through the corridors. Melody. She was almost gone.

"Amy, please let Rory go," she said without lowering her gun. "We're going to keep this civilised."

"River..." The Doctor affected his most heartbroken look, amplifying the hurt into true devastation for her benefit.

"He has my notebook," Amy Titus said. "I need it."

The final stages of the airlock were engaging. Maybe he could still track the ship she was on.

River held out a hand. "His notebook."

The Doctor had the book tucked in his jacket, but he didn't make any move to retrieve it. "Let us past and you can have it."

"Give it to me and I won't shoot you."

She wasn't as good as she thought. Her voice wavered just the tiniest bit, her throat worked subtly, her eyes were the cold, hard eyes of someone determined but uncertain. She wasn't going to shoot him. If he could have said the same for Amy Titus he would have just run.

With a final disengaging lock from some distant place, hope of rescuing Melody vanished. The Doctor closed his eyes tight for a moment. When he opened them he had no patience for trying to do this the civilised way.

"Then shoot me. Go on. Shoot me." He grabbed River by the wrist and pointed the gun to his right heart, ignoring her gasp of protest. She tried to struggle out of his grip but he held her tight. "Come on, then, Doctor Song. You've killed one man, what's one more?"

"Let me go," she said firmly, still struggling.

"Don't ever try to bluff me. The regeneration energy would knock out all three of you. So how about you stop screwing around and tell me why in _hell_ you would do this to Amelia? What could you possibly have to gain?" He pushed her hand away from him, disgusted.

She lowered her gun and looked so exhausted that he almost felt sorry for her. "It doesn't matter. You can't know, not now. This isn't how today was supposed to go. Time is being rewritten."

Amy Titus still had Rory at gunpoint. They had failed but they still had to break the stalemate. He didn't want her to get away. He wanted to grab her and shake her until she stopped being so damn mysterious and just told him where Melody had gone. Right now it looked like the best case scenario was that he managed to talk Amy Titus' gun away from Rory.

He took a deep breath and held up both hands, trying to calm everyone down. Just one moment of calm to get everyone out alive. "You've done what you needed to do. Just put down the guns and we'll let you leave."

"Doctor!" Rory yelled.

"Revenge isn't going to do us any good. Amelia needs you now."

Rory nodded, his jaw tight.

Amy Titus glanced back at River. "My notebook. If I don't have it, Nandy..."

"It's my turn to protect Nandy," the Doctor said, unable to entirely keep the anger out of his voice. "Let Rory go. He's no threat to you."

"Let him go, Amy. We're done here," River said.

After a moment's hesitation Amy Titus lowered the gun. He didn't waste time stepping back into River's arms. She met the Doctor's eyes one last time with an inscrutable look, then activated what looked like a new vortex manipulator and they were gone.

Rory instantly let out a yell of frustration and slammed his open hand against the wall. He leaned against the bulkhead, his eyes screwed up tightly, teeth bared in pain. The Doctor couldn't do anything but watch him. He didn't have any way to make this better.

He couldn't face Amelia. He had to, but he couldn't. He felt like both his hearts had collapsed. They'd all trusted River, but only because he had. They'd trust him to know the difference between a friend and an enemy and he'd failed them. They'd trusted him to keep their daughter safe. He covered his face with both hands and tried to work past the pain in his chest. Any second now Rory was going to start functioning again and he had to have a plan.

River. It all came back to River. She was at the epicentre of this landslide. Landslides didn't have epicentres. It didn't matter. She was his only lead on Melody.

"Rory..." he breathed, his voice weak. "Rory, pull it together."

"They took her."

"I know. And you're angry at me, I know that, too. But I need you to keep your wife from killing me long enough for me to chase River."

Rory leaned his forehead against the wall, fighting off tears. "Can you find her?"

"Yes," he lied. "This isn't over."

Rory pulled himself up straight, sniffed, then shook it off and pulled himself together. "Alright. Alright, yeah, let's go."

They walked back toward the others as slowly as the Doctor thought he could get away with. He kept imagining Amelia's face, again and again, from grief to rage. He didn't know what she'd do. He didn't want to know. She'd always trusted him, her whole life, and now that would be gone. Her faith in him shattered and he had no one to blame but himself.

Amelia was still crouched behind a crate when they came back, the blanket in her arms crumpled and empty. Her face was red from crying, her eyes sore and glassy. She looked up to him, so hopeful, and all he could do was shake his head.

Rory rushed to her side as she dissolved into sobs. This whole day was like a bad dream. The fighting had started again while they were gone. Bodies littered the floor. His friends and allies were exhausted and bloodied, leaning against each other, all of them tasting this defeat.

He felt frozen. All he could do was stand in the middle of Demons Run and look on what he'd caused. It reminded him of Gallifrey. This impotence, this crushing loss.

Somehow he managed to move, his face and hands animated on autopilot, herding people back into the TARDIS, not reacting when Amelia flinched away from him. He just had to get everyone home. Take back the survivors to where they belonged, let them all recover and try to forget.

His old girl was on his side, helping him when he fumbled coordinates, getting everyone home. Idris. Nandy's grandmother. Part of him felt even more helpless as he realised just how little of the future he knew, just how badly he failed at predicting any of it. But a part of him felt strengthened, like this was a buoy he could cling to and keep himself afloat. This was how Nandy's past happened. The TARDIS had been Idris before he'd ever known about it. He had been surrounded by his future family before he'd even known that was possible. Things were never hopeless.

Amelia and Rory were the last to get home. The Leadworth garden at night, just like their wedding night. When River, looking soft and cuddly with her wild curls and big fur coat, had flirted with him and he thought he fell in love with her just a little.

Amelia had gone quiet in her grief, curled against Rory, eyes downcast. They walked out into the garden and he thought she might not say anything to him ever again, but she looked up at him, a mother's fury written all over her face. "What are you going to do when you find her?"

"Whatever I have to," he said. In that terrible moment, he knew that he meant it.

She said nothing else, just nodded and led her husband away.

The Doctor walked back in and leaned against the console. Betrayal and loss were two of the hardest things to cope with and River had laid them both on him at once.

He wanted to calm down. There had been too many times in his past where anger had led to death. Visions flashed behind his eyes of beating the truth out of River and he instinctively recoiled from the idea, disgusted that it had even occurred to him.

He needed a clear head. He needed to catch her without Amy Titus. Her son hated him, that much he'd made clear in Manhattan. If he was there nothing would get accomplished. But if River had sinister plans for him they were much more subtle than a bullet. She spoke of Demons Run like a legendary event, he thought she might have known about it all her life.

A young River. Sometime before Utah.

He plugged in the coordinates for Stormcage, hoping Sexy was still on his side. He left the brake on.

When he opened the doors he was relieved to see that he was in the right place. In the dark of the Stormcage River lay on her bed, writing in her journal. Lightning flashed outside her tiny window.

She looked up and smiled tiredly. "Hello, Sweetie. Back already? When are you coming from?"

"Demons Run," he said.

Her whole face lit up with such earnest joy that his anger was derailed. He was flooded with that same feeling he'd had on discovering the unconscious silurians. Something had gone wrong.

"Thank heaven," she sighed. She closed her journal, stood up and approached the bars. "So you know who I am."

"I don't know anything." He didn't like the voice that was coming out of him. Too hard, too angry. Too much a man he was trying not to be. "I don't know who you are, or what you are. I know you've made me a lot of promises that you haven't delivered on and I'm here to collect."

She raised an eyebrow, half incredulous, half confused, an uncertain smile still plastered on her face. "What's the matter with you? You met me at Demons Run."

"You bet I did. I want to know what happened to Melody Pond."

"What's gotten into you? You know what happened."

Without thinking about it he slammed a hand against one of the bars of her cell, making her startle backwards. He shouted, his voice echoing around the cell. "If I knew what happened, would I be here?"

"This doesn't make any sense. Demons Run is a fixed point. It can't have gone any differently. You've given me a bloody script so that I don't mess it up. You always said... you..." She frowned and folded her arms, completely distressed. "What happened for you?"

He wrapped his hand tightly around the bar until his knuckles turned white. She wasn't intimidated by his anger, wasn't in the least bit concerned by Melody's fate. He didn't have the patience to recount the events but there was no other way. "What _happened_ was that when Rory and I went to rescue Melody, you and Amy Titus held us at gunpoint to let the Silence get away with her."

"Who's Amy Titus?"

"_Does __it __matter__?_" he was really yelling now. Oh, he just wanted to throttle her sometimes. She didn't look at all worried by this turn of events. Just confused.

"Why weren't you with Amy?"

"River Song I swear that if you don't tell me what you'd do with Melody this instant..." He cut himself off with a strangled sound of anger. He didn't know what threat to make.

It caught her interest, if only to amuse her. "Then what, my love?"

"I am not your love. I am no one to you, do you understand me? _You_ are no one to _me_." He ran a hand through his hair, turning this way and that, trying to express himself. "The first day I met you, you were so magnificent. Clever and brave and beautiful and I thought about you for _years_. Every day, in the back of my head, when I least expected it. River Song, archeologist. But it seems like every time we've met since you've just been chipping away at that good grace, asking again and again for patience, trust, faith. Well it's gone. You've used it all up. Tell me where to look for Melody or I am _done_ with you."

That got her attention. The amused smile was gone from her face. Her eyes were glassy and her hands shook. He would have called it heartbroken on anyone else, but not after what he'd just seen.

She swallowed hard and her lips trembled, but she set her jaw and met his eye stubbornly. "Spoilers."


	10. 10

**Doctor XI**

The TARDIS didn't want to take his requests. Ever since Nandy's notebook she'd been more contrary then usual, not it was just a stab in the dark when he input coordinates. More like a question than a demand. It felt like he was being set adrift at sea.

He didn't know where he wanted to go after Stormcage. River unrepentant stubbornness had only made him feel worse. He'd have to track down some cooperative version of her, the Silence, Madame Kovarian, the justice department, something. He had no solid plan. After a lot of cursing and kicking the console out of frustration he decided to go back to Demons Run and see if there was anything that might tell him where they'd taken Melody.

He plugged in the coordinated, prayed to the whims of his old girl and when he opened the door to bright sunlight shining on his face he thought he was as close to a rage stroke as he was ever going to get.

It took him a few seconds to get himself under control and take in his surroundings. The TARDIS wouldn't have brought him here for no reason.

His immediate guess was Earth. No telling when, he was out in the countryside, an imposing manor house not far away in a sort of post-22nd century design, maybe European. The gardens were full of people of all ages and colours, all overdressed – painted, coiffed, dripping with costume jewellery. He was at some kind of party.

But it wasn't Earth. Green grass, blue skies, definitely humans around him, but the air tasted wrong. He couldn't place it.

He was getting a few curious looks from the bejewelled people passing by around him and he stared back. Each of them had some device strapped around their left wrist. It might have been a vortex manipulator, a late model one. That would make a certain amount of sense, they'd managed to travel quite a way. A few of them raised the devices to their mouths as they looked at him, speaking into them quietly. So not manipulators, some kind of communications.

He ambled slowly up the cobbled path to the main house, under the branches of the weeping willows that lined most of the grounds. If there was something here to see, it would probably be there. As he approached he heard the sound of children playing and saw bunches of balloons tied to the low fencing.

A child's birthday party. He couldn't be grumpy at a child's birthday party.

There were a dozen or so children seated around low tables, a few of the adults handing out plates of cake. Streamers and more balloons were draped all around the little section of garden where they played, and further up a group of adults were sitting under a marquee, drinking and talking.

And sitting at that table was River Song.

He nearly didn't recognise her, because she was the youngest he'd ever seen her. She had to be barely thirty if that. Her hair was paler and her curls curlier and she was beautiful and so young that she hadn't had the chance to betray him yet. She was laughing at something one of her friends was saying, a wine glass in one hand. She had friends. Why was that a surprise? Of course she had friends.

"You utter cad."

He whirled around at a voice unmistakeably directed at him. Nandy. He saw the markings before anything else registered. She had regenerated since he'd last seen her, her skin black as ink, her hair a wild mane around her face and her broad smile now a delicate pout. The markings were so white against her skin that she looked like a work of art.

"Nandy!" he exclaimed, delight flooding him despite his mood.

"You had no idea who I was on that tesselecta," she growled at him. She was dressed the same as all the others, in big flounces of stiff fabric, hers in red. Rings, bangles and necklaces dangled from every available inch of skin, except her left arm, which was bound in numerous devices similar to the comms everyone else carried.

"It was Amy Titus' idea," he said.

"Since when do you listen to Amy?"

"Since someone was getting around on my TARDIS with a perception filter."

She groaned. "I don't, do I?"

"You haven't yet?"

Nandy raised an eyebrow. "You're here, aren't you?"

Of course, she inherited the TARDIS when he died. The idea that he was jumping forward from the past didn't seem to occur to her.

There was something different about her. "Where's my hug, then? On the tesselecta I got a hug and a smile. Are you cross with me?"

She stared at him for a moment before relaxing into a tired smile. "Of course not. I'm sorry, dad. It's just Amy's notebook resynced to mine too early and... well, you know. Some things we aren't meant to know."

He had no idea what she was talking about but accepted the less-than-enthusiastic hug she offered him. She seemed so tired. He made a promise to himself to spend as much time as possible with her when she was young, to soak up that effervescence before it disappeared.

She held him by the arm and walked him away from the table. He bit his tongue to stop himself protesting. River might know what was going on, he needed to talk with her, but Nandy really did seem upset with him and he wanted to fix that.

In with the little kids, a teenage boy with blond curls picked up a little ginger girl and whirled her around, making her squeal with delight.

"Braxy!" Nandy called out and the boy looked up. "Aren't you supposed to be studying?"

He looked like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His eyes darted to the Doctor's face and he looked even more nervous. "Just saying happy birthday to Melody, Curator."

The Doctor's gut seized, a wibbly feeling that he had to keep under control. This was where River had stashed Melody? With a younger version of herself? The little girl in Braxy's arms was a dead ringer for Amelia. Maybe three years old, red hair brighter than sunflowers. She looked healthy and happy, she was in no immediate danger.

"Make it quick." She looked up at the Doctor. "Aren't you going to say hello to them?"

"Later," he said.

She nodded knowingly and kept them walking out of earshot of the main group. "I take it you've felt the timelines shifting."

"I'm not a soothsayer, I don't feel that sort of thing. But I've seen it happening."

"We're taking precautions, Amy has me locked in place so I don't do any blundering about." She held up her wrist. All the gadgets. If he could make memory circuits and temporal bombs then the Doctor couldn't even guess what else was in Amy Titus' arsenal. "I can't find the source. Have you got anything?"

"Well..." He had to answer this very carefully. He didn't know what he was fixing and he didn't want to tip his hand about how early in his own timeline he was. It was something to do with Melody but Nandy didn't seem to think there was anything astray there. "Are you certain Melody was always here?"

"I'd hope so. I've been constructing this place for long enough to keep her safe."

It was artificial! No wonder it didn't appear to have a time or place. Brilliant. He wondered if the whole year was this warm sunshine. Did it have a night? A winter? Or had she just made a wonderland of eternal summer for the little girl? Maybe it was always her birthday.

"It just sort of looks like she might be the problem."

Nandy nodded solemnly. "Where do you think she's supposed to be?"

"I'm not sure, I'm working on that. Did River bring her here?"

"Of course she did. She doesn't let her out of her sight, you know how it works."

The peaceful feeling of the sunshine and the gardens faded as the anger bubbled toward the surface again. Nandy probably had no idea where Melody had come from. River was using his daughter, probably his whole mystery family, making them help in her plans. Most of his timeline he trusted her, Nandy was mad for her son, who knew how she'd abused the privilege?

She still had his arm, but her free hand was clenching and unclenching nervously. Her lower lip was snagged between her teeth and she had her eyes downcast.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea and why are you looking like that?"

A disbelieving laugh escaped her mouth. "It's the best idea we ever had. I just wonder sometimes why you're not the one playing guard dog. I shouldn't bring this up, it's Melody's birthday. I know with the fullness of time everything will become clear, but sometimes it is so frustrating, dad."

"That I'm not here?"

"Yes! I'm only six hundred years old and I have the weight of an entire people on my shoulders. I worry every minute of every day that the Silence will find us before we're strong enough to properly defend ourselves. Mum says that it's just in your nature to work your works from afar but it's hard to be understanding some days. Especially today."

The Doctor looked down at his hands, ashamed on behalf of his future self. He didn't know the situation but he knew that the stinging accusations Amy Titus flung in his direction had a ring of truth to them that he didn't like. He wondered if the fullness of time would explain his negligence or if the ties of family were just too much for him to bear. If he worried that his mere presence put his family in danger.

The Silence had been dogging him since he met Amelia in Leadworth. He couldn't believe they'd still be after him six hundred years after his daughter was born.

"Nandy," he sighed. "I have no excuse. But I would never have put this burden on you if I didn't believe in you, if I didn't think we could make this work. You're magnificent. I know you want me, and I want to be here more than you can imagine, but you don't need me."

She looked up at him with a deep grief in her eyes. "You didn't recognise Braxy."

He could have kicked himself. The baby she'd mentioned on the tesselecta? It had to be. He had a son and he hadn't even said hello. This had been so much easier with Amy Titus guiding him through it.

"I haven't met him yet," he confessed.

"You what? Dad, are you visiting us out of order?" Nandy said, her voice rising. "If you break quarantine we'll have to abandon this place. We only have two other safehouses and I'd rather not blow through them too quickly."

She looked around and quickly calmed herself. They'd made a slow circle of the garden and were heading back toward the party.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Blame your grandmother, she's not listening to a word I say nowadays."

"She only forces you somewhere when you're not being useful."

"Well this time I think she might have hit the nail on the head. Melody shouldn't be here. She should be with her parents."

Nandy stopped dead, wrenching him to a stop beside her. They were almost back to the party but suddenly her grip on his forearm was like a vice, they weren't going anywhere. Horror dawned slowly on her face and her voice was barely a whisper. "Who do you think Melody is?"

From the way her breathing had quickened he knew that he had been completely caught out.

The people at the party had noticed their return and he saw River's hair bounce in his peripheral vision as she shot to her feet. Caught.

"She's Amelia and Rory's daughter," he said, praying whatever Nandy knew matched up somehow with what he knew.

River was yelling as she ran toward them. "No, Vandy, he's too young!"

"That's not Melody your wife," Nandy breathed. "That's Melody your daughter. Where in _hell_ are you coming from?"

He licked his lips. "Demons Run."

Nandy back away from him, shaking her head, her mouth hanging open. River reached them, her hands going to Nandy's shoulders to see if she was alright.

The Timelord squeezed her eyes shut and brought her wrist communicator to her mouth. "All parties, quarantine has been breached."

River looked at him, her eyes wide. She was beautiful this young. "Oh, you beautiful idiot, what have you done?"

The peaceful gardens around them exploded into pandemonium, everyone on their feet and running.

The Doctor gestured futilely in the direction of the TARDIS, trying to point out that he hadn't come here by choice, but no one was paying any attention to him.

"Sherry's papers," Nandy said urgently to River.

"Forget them. Get Melody, bring her to me and stay with Abraxis. The others will make their own way. Just make sure we get all the children." She ushered Nandy away and spoke into her wrist. "Amy, set the charges. Thirty seconds. We have a full breach, don't leave anything standing."

"What are you doing?" The Doctor sprang forward and grabbed her by the wrist. It didn't make any sense, for a start. She hadn't even met Amy Titus and now she was telling him to blow up everything. How badly had the timelines become jumbled?

"Fixing your mess, my love," she said with a wry smile. "Why would you come here?"

"Me? Why would _you__?_"

She was still smiling, tired but understanding. "When are we for you?"

"Demons Run."

"Oh, what a mess."

"Yes," he growled, frustrated. "Yes, you could call it that."

The world around them began to glow, getting brighter like an overexposed photograph. Amy Titus' bomb was about to go off but no one was running. The adults huddled in small groups, shielding the children as though they could do any good. River didn't look the slightest bit bothered by their impending annihilation.

"Look for the Leadworth crop circle," she said as the world turned so bright he could barely see. Nandy ran toward them with Melody in one arm and dragging Braxy along with her free hand.

River took Melody and crouched to the ground, using her body as a shield.

There was no way to get back to the TARDIS in time to save himself, he'd have to regenerate. He would have been panicked if the entire world wasn't just so confusing. He was too distracted to panic as the world turned white.

There was a blinding flash and a sensation of floating.

Then he was alive.

It was like being sucked into the tesselecta, the sensation of being completely reoriented in time and space and it took him a long, stupid second to realise that he was completely fine.

It was night in a busy city, rain was pouring down over him and he saw stars at the sudden readjustment of light.

New New York took him no time to identify. A crowded street, lots of different people and the TARDIS standing about ten feet away. But he couldn't have cared less because his entire brain seemed to be occupied with the simple fact that _Amy __Titus__' __bombs __didn__'__t __kill __people__._

He stumbled over to the TARDIS and pressed a hand to his forehead. Amy Titus hadn't killed anyone. Well, he'd probably killed people, he knew how to handle that gun. But he hadn't killed the twenty thousand people he'd been imprisoned for. Oh, he was so thick. Stupid, stupid, thick Doctor. Amy Titus hadn't been causing random mayhem, he'd been keeping the Silence away from Nandy.

Where did Melody Pond fit into all this? Had she been there? One of those faces that he hadn't even looked at?

Oh, he was going to get a headache.

But now, finally, he had a lead. The Leadworth crop circle.

He bolted into the TARDIS and set to work.


	11. 11

**Catastrophe VIII**

America was a nice place, Amy Titus had decided. Well, it had its problems, principally in the form of dry counties, but for the most part it was everything a couple of errant Timelords could want.

They'd spent two weeks with Tony all up, before and after Demons Run. He hadn't wanted to leave. Humans were fascinating and Tony was the best uncle, but River had insisted that she didn't want to disrupt his life too much and at some point they'd have to face the temporal music. Manhattan was completely out of bounds for the TARDIS from 1948 through to 2010, they had to get somewhere that the Doctor could find them after he'd done Berlin.

So they were, as River put it, Thelma and Louise-ing it across middle America in a car with wheels, their stereo blaring with an 8-track tape of the Bee Gees. It was so delightfully low tech that he wanted to do a full renovation of the entire car, make something retro chic out of it, but there was no workshop on the planet stocked with what he'd need. Not in civilian hands, anyway.

They had no destination in mind, just knowing the Doctor would find them when he was ready and hopefully not before Berlin. They stopped for fuel and coffee in Kearney, Nebraska, one of a long string of little cities they'd passed through on their road trip.

Americans were so nice. Especially when they thought he and River were British. She'd explained to him that their accent denoted origins on a certain part of Earth in this time period, and the locals always wanted them to see the country at its best.

In a tiny diner in Kearney, River sniffed her coffee and politely didn't make a face at the smell of it. Amy Titus couldn't restrain the tiniest hint of a grimace. They were definitely touring the country's worst coffee, if nothing else.

A map was spread across the table between them and she pointed. "We're here now. We'll avoid the coasts so that the Doctor can find us easily, he might lose us in the crowd if we go anywhere too important."

"Let's go to New Orleans, next. He can land there, yeah?"

"It's a bit big."

"Not that big. And everyone keeps talking about the food from there."

She sipped her coffee and coughed, taking a moment to recover. "Mm. We'll head to Louisiana but we'll stay out of the city proper."

Amy Titus tried his own coffee and it was just as bad as it smelled but at least it was caffeine. Travelling manually was exhausting. He supposed this is what the rest of them were doing when they were tracking the Silence in 1969. No wonder they'd been in almost constant bad moods.

"If we go through Alabama..." Amy Titus trailed off as he heard a faint, familiar sound.

He met River's eye. She heard it too. The brakes of the TARDIS.

Without a word they rose, River tossed some money on the table and they silently left the diner.

In the parking lot the outline of the TARDIS was just beginning to appear. He grabbed her hand and held it tight. They could only hope this was a post-Berlin Doctor, otherwise they needed to be ready to run. He didn't want to leave his car behind.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Not much choice."

He laughed and squeezed her hand. Together they held their breath.

The TARDIS fully materialised and the door opened.

Two familiar, glorious, wonderful, amazing faces poked out of the open door.

The twelfth Doctor and the second Nandy grinned broadly at them. Amy Titus let out an inarticulate noise of joy and lunged forward, pulling Nandy out into the open and into a hug. He lifted her feet off the ground and swung her in a circle.

"Oh, Nandy," he breathed into her huge cloud of hair. "Oh, I thought I wouldn't see you again."

She laughed into his chest. "Of course you were going to see me again, babu. As if I'd leave you alone with our parents."

A great weight lifted off his chest and he sighed heavily, he hadn't realised how tense he'd become until he saw her again. She was still safe. Hale and whole and with all that mad hair that he'd missed so much it hurt.

River and the Doctor were locked in a similar embrace, wound up tightly in each other. Amy Titus supposed if he had so much trouble with a young Doctor then she must have been in hell with him. Oh, it was good to have his family back.

"How long has it been?" the Doctor asked.

"This you? Post-Trenzalore? Not since I told you I was pregnant."

He groaned a little. "I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you."

"What about you, when are you?"

"Well my wife is currently too rotund to come adventuring and quite fond of throwing things at me."

River slapped his chest, affecting anger. "Again? How many do you expect me to have?"

"Spoilers." He kissed her nose. He looked at Nandy. "Is this your first time meeting..?"

River looked at Nandy like she was seeing her for the first time. She smiled a special, crooked smile reserved usually just for Amy Titus himself, one of unselfconscious happiness. Nandy looked down shyly and stepped out of Amy Titus' arms.

"Hello, mum."

River gave a short, stunned laugh and pulled her into a hug. "Barely a year pregnant and now I have two adult children. Life is just full of surprises lately."

"A few too many," the Doctor said after a moment. "You've noticed the timelines?"

River pulled away from Nandy and nodded. "New memories."

"I'm sorry." The Doctor winced.

Amy Titus frowned. She hadn't mentioned anything to him about new memories. His own were in flux, his imprisonment had changed but he'd told her that. Nandy let out a little sound of discontent under her breath, looking at their father.

"It's fine, I was more worried about you than myself. Let's talk inside, though," River said. "It's good to see a post-Utah version of you."

"You're worried about post-Utah?" The Doctor said with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm getting older, my love. You're getting younger."

"How long?"

"Eight months."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, grabbed her by the hand and led her into the TARDIS. "Vandy, take us into the vortex? We need to go talk about parent things."

The look on Nandy's face would have been priceless if Amy Titus didn't think he was wearing the exact same one. Their parents were gone before they could properly voice their disgust at the lack of subtlety but Nandy obediently went to the console and started to put them in flight.

Amy Titus helped her from the opposite side and watched her as they worked. She was grumpy. Well, not grumpy. Just not... Nandy. Not his personal ball of sunshine and diabetes.

"If those two could be any more embarrassing I don't know how," she grumbled.

He laughed, more out of surprise than humour. "What?"

"Do I need to spell it out?"

"No, I know what they're doing. Wish I didn't. I meant since when do you grouch about the Doctor? You're making faces at him. You never make faces at him. What happened to daddy's girl?"

She flung the final lever and sent them into the vortex, then flounced down the hallway to their lounge. He followed behind her, head cocked in curiosity. She wasn't even wearing her flouncy skirt, instead she was in a pair of jeans. Jeans. On Nandy. Their timelines really had been messed up.

"Maybe I'm just growing up," she said as she threw herself dramatically onto her favourite chaise.

He shook his head and fished for their pack of cards in the drawer under the coffee table. Their little lounge looked like it hadn't been used in a while. It was nothing special, just comfy chairs, a stocked bar and a great sound system, but it was their private space.

"I have met you when you're three thousand years old and you still think that man hung the stars," he said as he dealt the cards.

"Spoilers," she admonished.

"Are you going through a rebellious stage? Rage against the machine or something?"

"Not wanting to imagine my parents shagging is hardly rebellious."

He pushed her hand of cards toward her and she accepted them. They'd played this game so many times they didn't even need to speak, just tossing their cards on the table. She'd been four when he taught her this game. Endless hours to keep a baby girl busy while they waged war on the people trying to kidnap her.

The Silence had been completely unscrupulous. They still were. With every passing year they became more powerful and more inventive, attacking that little girl from every conceivable angle. Amy Titus had managed to head off the worst of it before they took it back in time and actually moved against her, but there had still been plenty of plans make it through.

Now his little girl was all grown up and still the threat of time being rewritten was constant. Going to prison had almost been a relief.

"Do you two have any idea what's happening to our timelines?"

Nandy shook her head. "Nothing. But we've seen evidence that we're working on it in the future as well and we're forming new memories of working on it in the past, its like whatever's happening is hitting multiple points in our history all at once."

"It started with your notebook in the TARDIS."

"That's the focal point we're working from but we can't find the rupture. Things are changing but not that much. Nana knows what's in Greystark House but the results don't change. Dad finds out about Melody in Berlin instead of Demons Run. The course of events should just realign itself but it's not. It just keeps deviating like it's trying to jump the tracks of its own accord."

Amy Titus frowned and looked at the cards in his hand. "If you're here that means quarantine must have been breached so badly that it's irretrievable. I mean worse than me being here, now. That's a massive change in our timeline."

"One of dad's new memories, he breached Elysium about two hundred years into my future." She smiled at him sadly. "Since it's already wrecked we thought you two could use a relief trip."

"No joke. Met Uncle Tony, though."

"Who?"

"Oh, you have to meet him. Mum's brother. But don't you think the quarantine breach could be what's changing?"

"No, the change is definitely centred here. I can feel it."

Amy Titus sighed. "I should lock you down. With this much flux you're going to start causing paradoxes, crossing timelines. The universe is going to end up exploding."

"There's no need to pick on me because I'm differently abled."

Oh, she loved to play that card. He grinned to himself. The little brat. "Not being temporally locked is dangerous on a good day. I'll whip up a few things for you. I'll even make them pretty."

"I hate being time-blind."

"You won't be. I promise."

She sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Fine."

"You know what they call you in the future?"

"No, and you shouldn't tell me."

"The Curator," he smiled. "Head of all operations, even above mum. Quantum physics, astronomical engineering, biological engineering, sociology. The Curator of New Gallifrey."

A smile crept across her face even as she tried to stifle it. "What's your point?"

"That you probably shouldn't be such a brat about needing a temporal lock." He grinned at her, predicting her sour look and the cushion thrown at his head. He dodged with a laugh.

"Make the stupid things, then, but I'm not putting them on until after I've given birth."

Amy Titus looked down at her belly in surprise. Barely rounded, she couldn't be more than two years in. "What number is this, then? Three?"

"Two. No spoilers!"

"How old is Cora?"

"Three hundred and change. We must all do our part for Timelord society!" She said the last as if she was mockingly quoting some patriotic poster. "When are you going to get around to making some little Timelords?"

"What are you, my mother? You'll get your grandkids when I'm good and ready and preferably not incarcerated."

"Oh, but they'd be so cute," she teased. "Tiny, gangly babies. I can hear their demands for cake right now."

"Unlike yours, who I'm sure have all inherited your crazy eyes."

"Crazy eyes?" she challenged.

"You heard me."

She lost interest in her mock anger. "They're all mutts until we get a decent biological engineer, anyway. I pity the poor kid who has to wade through the gene pool we're giving him to work with. Mine have been conceived on the TARDIS but I don't even know how Ula is getting hers. Did you give her something?"

Amy Titus grinned to himself. Abraxis – their biological engineer – wouldn't be born for another hundred and fifty years in her timeline. He'd only met the man once but he was one of the most put-upon, long-suffering souls he'd ever met and was definitely paying the price for Ula and Sherry's 'mutts'.

He shrugged. "I haven't yet, but I might. I'm working on a vortex exposure module to help... well, spoilers."

Nandy frowned, sad. "We won't always have to say that. We'll fix the quarantine breach, somehow."

"Hey, of course we will. If mum and the Doctor could fix up their god awful mess then ours has to be fixable, right?"

Their cards lay on the table, forgotten. When had his little Nandy started thinking so hard? She'd always been brilliant, but never pensive. Something big was on her mind and for some reason she wasn't talking to the Doctor about it.

"I don't like seeing them so young," she said. "Dad always said that life is a pile of good things and bad things, and I believe him. I just thought with their marriage that those good things were... well... I thought we just hadn't seen them. I thought they were _now_, so to speak."

"I'm pretty sure they're enjoying themselves right now," Amy Titus deadpanned, just to see the wince of disgust on her face.

"You know what I mean. I thought before the quarantine that their mixed up timelines would be sort of romantic. Not you and mum running like blazes from dad in backwater America."

"That's because of whatever's happening. It didn't happen this way originally."

"It's not the only thing I've seen."

He rolled his eyes. "Come on, baby girl. Dad thinks that if he speaks his name the Timelords are going to come back."

"We _do_."

"But he doesn't know it's us. He thinks it's the old Timelords. He's terrified. After you're born you know things get better, and you know we don't see most of it. They're private people."

"So private we barely ever see them in the same room together?"

"You know they see each other. She manages to get pregnant often enough."

Nandy gave a very unladylike snort of laughter, a grin spreading across her face at the absurdity of it all. Her laughter continued until she was red in the face and wheezing. "Please stop reminding me that our parents have sex."

"I'll remind you every five minutes if it makes you laugh. I bet Cora thinks the same about you. When you told her you were pregnant she probably went out and drank absinthe until she felt clean again."

Her laughter had clearly overtaken her and she lay back against the chaise, shaking with it. "Stop it."

"Then stop moping. Now come on, we've got a game of cards to finish."

When she recovered herself enough she sat up, tears of laughter tracing tracks down her face, and they resumed their game of cards.

They didn't say anything else about her worries, but Amy Titus felt like he might have begun to pinpoint what had gone wrong in their timelines. They'd been beyond diligent in protecting her from the Silence, but maybe it hadn't been enough.

Nandy had changed.


End file.
